Telefonica Czech Republic (BAATELEC.PR) wants to bid for new mobile bandwidth to be auctioned later this year, provided the Czech sector regulator doesn't limit the process to new operators.

"We think that the auction shouldn't serve as a regulatory instrument and we really hope that there will the same terms for all bidders," Chief Financial Officer Petr Kubovy says in an online interview on business news portal Patria.cz.

Telefonica Czech is majority owned by Spain's Telefonica SA (TEF).

The regulator, CTU, is scheduled to release the terms of the frequency bandwidth auction next month and hold the bidding by September. It has yet to decide whether to limit the auction to new market entrants in a bid to increase competition in the sector.

Telefonica Czech is one of three companies that currently operate in the Czech mobile telecoms market. The other two are Vodafone Group PLC (VOD) and Deutsche Telekom AG's (DTE.XE) T-Mobile.

The upcoming bandwidth auction is also expected to help speed up the rollout of new high-speed mobile networks with long-term evolution technology, the successor to third-generation, or 3G, mobile data services.

Website: www.patria.cz

-By Leos Rousek, Dow Jones Newswires; +420 222 315 290; leos.rousek@dowjones.com

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