Digital Dividend Auction in Germany – Rural Areas First

With the digital dividend band in Germany about the be auctioned in April this year, it's interesting to see under which conditions spectrum spectrum will be sold to the highest bidders. As the 800 MHz band is ideal to bring high speed Internet to undeserved rural areas, the auction conditions set by the "Bundesnetzagentur" contains the following conditions:

By 2016, 90% of the population of cities and areas selected by regional governments (Bundesländer) must be either served by high speed wireless or wireline Internet access. Small villages will get precedence over larger towns by grouping them into 4 priorities:

• Priority 1: Areas and villages with a population less than 5.000 inhabitants
• Priority 2: Towns and areas with a population up to 20.000 inhabitants
• Priority 3: Cities up to 50.000 inhabitants (are there any such cities in Germany left that don't have 3G or DSL coverage yet???)
• Priority 4: Beyond that, anything goes

Priority 2 towns can only be served once at least 90% of the priority 1 areas are covered, and so on.

For more details, click on the link above for 181 pages of nitty gritty details.