Romania defers auction for 5G licenses to next year

Romania’s telecom market regulator ANCOM will hold the auction for allocating the radio frequency bands dedicated to applications using 5G technologies in the first part of next year, ANCOM president Sorin Grindeanu announced in a public conference on Thursday.

The half-year delay means that Romania’s Government can no longer expect to pocket the EUR 500 million (0.25% of GDP) estimated to be derived to the budget from the 5G license auctions this year. This means stronger budget revenues next year, but an extra 0.25% of GDP on top of this year’s budget deficit, which already reached 2.62% of GDP in the first nine months.

ANCOM said that the auction can no longer be organized this year because the institution hasn’t yet received the set of network security measures from the European Commission and the Government has not implemented the Memorandum signed by the Governments of Romania and the US. Moreover, the new Government should draft the budget for the year 2020 and approve the license fees and their payment schedule.

Under these conditions, the ANCOM management considers that organizing the auction in full transparency and predictability is not possible.

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