Czechs axe 4G tender, says bids too high

The Czech CTU telecommunications watchdog said Friday it had cancelled its first-ever auction of fourth-generation mobile frequencies, saying the bids it had received were too high and would mean overly high service costs for future consumers.

Offers which topped 20 billion koruna (786 million euros, $1 billion) were "economically unrealistic" as customers would eventually have to pay for it, the CTU said in a statement.

The watchdog received bids from the country's three mobile operators—Telefonica, T-Mobile and Vodafone—and from PPF Mobile Services, a unit of the Czech financial group PPF.

"The high prices would have a negative impact, leading to excessive fees for high-speed mobile internet," said Pavel Dvorak, chairman of the CTU.

(c) 2013 AFP