Hungary Mobile Companies Get Small Chunks Of 900MHz Band -Report

Mobile companies operating in Hungary were only able to buy small chunks of the rights to use a so far unused spectrum of its 900 megahertz mobile frequency band, Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet reported Friday.

Of the 10.8 MHz frequency bloc--available for broadening electronic telecommunications services--within the 900 MHz band on tender by Hungary's Media Authority, the three mobile companies active in Hungary will only be able to together get a 5.8 MHz chunk, the paper says.

Norway's Telenor ASA (TEL.OS) will get 1.8 MHz, the U.K.'s Vodafone Group PLC (VOD) will receive 2 MHz and Magyar Telekom Nyrt. (MTELEKOM.BU), which is owned by Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE.XE), will receive 2 MHz, Magyar Nemzet says.

The media authority declined to comment, saying the tender was ongoing and until it publishes the official results Jan. 31 only participants are entitled to see documents.

The rest of the 10.8 MHz bloc will likely be won by a newcomer, a consortium of state-owned companies led by power holding MVM Zrt.

The paper calculates the price payable by Vodafone at 15.67 billion forints ($66.7 million), by Magyar Telekom at HUF10.92 billion and by Telenor at HUF7.29 billion.

On this basis, probably none of the current incumbents will be able to build out a Hungary-wide high-speed mobile internet service, KBC Securities analyst Gergely Palffy said in a note to investors. Therefore the news can have a negative impact on Magyar Telekom shares.

The stock was trading up 0.2% or HUF1 at HUF547 at 0911 GMT.