Clear likely to follow BT in spectrum bid

By RICHARD BRADDELL

WELLINGTON - Clear Communications is a likely bidder in the third generation cellular spectrum auction that kicks off in July, in keeping with parent British Telecom's global priority of winning licences.

"No decisions have been made yet, but we have already bid in the UK, we are going to bid in Germany, in France and the Netherlands, and we have already done so in Japan. We are doing something in Korea, so I would say it's mission critical," said British Telecom's Hong Kong-based vice-president of regulatory and public affairs, Larry Stone.

BT has just spent $12 billion in Britain's latest licence auction.

But repeating the caveat that no decisions had been made regarding Clear, Mr Stone said third generation's potential to integrate mobile internet and multimedia offered exponential growth in services and from market segments "you wouldn't otherwise expect."

Clear has already signalled its interest in spectrum through its lengthy submission to the telecommunications inquiry in which it advocates mandatory roaming between networks and mandatory rights to put equipment on cell towers owned by incumbents.

According to Mr Stone, the opportunity the inquiry gave to "tweak" the regulatory environment was positive for investment.

"When you are looking at a global spread of investments, alliances and partnerships that is one factor in the equation. No one has an un-emptiable pot of cash these days."

Mr Stone said he was unable to say if Telecom's admissions that its local loop needed substantial investment to bring it up to internet standard were aimed at staving off unbundling.

Telecom is opposed to unbundling, an increasingly common approach to stimulating competition overseas in which new entrants can attach their own exchange equipment directly to the incumbent's network.

"I haven't seen an audit of Telecom's local loop. It's certainly technically feasible if the network is in a reasonable state," Mr Stone said.

Unbundling has recently been mandated in Britain and BT is to offer it from the middle of next year by allowing other operators to co-locate in exchanges and to connect high bandwidth services directly to its network. Korea already had one million high bandwidth ADSL lines unbundled and the European Union was looking to mandatory unbundling, Mr Stone said.

"When you look at regulation, there are a number of issues where ... the regulator can give things a light push. There are some areas where incumbents, and not least British Telecom, would have to be dragged screaming and kicking to change things," he said.