4 mobile providers to pay over €854 for 4G licences

Vodafone, Eircom’s Meteor, Telefonica, which owns O2, and Hutchinson 3G Ireland. The deal will see the providers making payments of upfront fees for usage until 2030.

The deal will allow the big 4 to  offer 4G services, such as faster mobile browsing and broadband.

Chairman of ComReg Alex Chisholm told RTE the amount paid for the licences exceeded their expectations.

Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, Mr Chisholm said: “They are a very strong set of results, we didn’t provide a forecast before but we did put in place some minimum prices, and these have certainly exceeded those prices.”

“We thought there would be excess demand and it seems there has been, and also the strong bidding must reflect the confidence that the bidders and the operators in the market have in the Irish electronic communications sector and the potential they see there,” he said.