Major European mobile operators Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Vodafone and Telefonica are in early talks to create a consortium to jointly bid on EU satellite spectrum for the growing market for direct-to-mobile services, under proposed EU rules that would reserve spectrum for a local operator, Bloomberg reported.
No final decisions have been made in the negotiations, the news service reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.
The reported plan would take advantage of rules being proposed by the EU that would reserve one-third of 2GHz spectrum in an upcoming auction for a locally owned operator, with a further one-third reserved for sovereign communications services provided by IRIS², a planned satellite constellation being built by a consortium led by SES, Eutelsat Communications and Hipasat, which is also to offer limited direct-to-mobile services through Hipasat.
Image credit: European Space Agency
Sovereign ownership
