Telecom · November 2025 · 8 min read
Spectrum auctions as industrial policy, not a fundraiser
Most spectrum auctions in the last decade have been designed as fundraising events. The countries quietly pulling ahead in digital competitiveness are the ones that have started designing them as industrial policy instead.
The argument
The auction design choice — reserve prices, coverage obligations, set-aside lots, payment phasing — does more to shape the next ten years of the digital economy than almost any other ministerial decision. A treasury-led auction maximises the cheque; an industrial-policy auction maximises the network that gets built, the rural coverage that gets delivered and the enterprise services that become possible. The two are rarely the same design.
What we see in the field
Across the auction reviews we have contributed to, the regulators getting better outcomes are not the ones with the most sophisticated economists. They are the ones with a clear written answer to a single question: in ten years, what do we want this spectrum to have made possible? Everything in the auction design flows from that answer.
What it changes
For governments, the implication is to resist the treasury's framing of spectrum as a receipt. For operators, it is that the auctions worth winning are the ones with coverage and quality obligations they can credibly meet — not the ones with the lowest reserve.
Where to start
Before the next auction is announced, write the one-page answer to the ten-year question. If the design does not visibly serve that answer, the auction is being run for the wrong reason.
