After Portugal and France, Spain also does not "resist". 5G auction postponed indefinitely

5G has also "suffered" from COVID-19 in Europe. After dictating the postponement of the 5G auction consultation in Portugal, the pandemic had the same consequence in Spain as it had in France. The 5G auction for the allocation of frequencies in Spain has now been postponed indefinitely, when the country had proposed to launch the 700 MHz band until June 30, the European Commission (EC) deadline. This means that the arrival of the 5G will also be delayed.

The shift from terrestrial to analogue television is, however, now postponed due to "greater forces". According to El Pas, the Spanish Government sent an EC statement, explaining that the decision relates to the measures taken to prevent further contagion of the disease. As a result, operators will not have access to the equipment and will launch the 700 MHz frequency band for the 5G service.

In Portugal, Anacom's decision to indefinitely postpone the auction of the fifth generation mobile network was confirmed on March 19, after the operators' appeal. in April, after analyzing the results of the public consultation. The delay in the migration of DTT, for which Altice had already warned, already compromised the goals of having services starting this year and which was expected to yield 237.9 million euros.

After the public consultation and the results were evaluated, still in March, the auction should start in April 2020, ending in June 2020, concluding the spectrum allocation procedures between June and August this year, which was in line with the plans that Anacom had already defined. And the chance of being able to anticipate these dates was advanced, as stated by Joo Cadete de Matos in response to journalists at the press conference to present the project.