Telecommunications companies across Africa are in a predicament when it comes to spectrum, as are national regulators. Governments have a scarce resource that telecom groups need, and one of the ways they divvy it up is through auction, but most groups do not have the funds to buy the spectrum at the reserve price, which can run into millions of dollars. For instance, the Nigerian Communications Commission will auction spectrum to expand 4G LTE coverage and encourage competition in the data sector. It wants the new frequencies to help push mobile broadband penetration from 21%, where it was in February, to 30% by the end of 2018. With spectrum auctions, states have three approaches for the reserve price of blocks - a low price to allow smaller operators to bid and leave them with funding; a medium price that generates funds for the state while leaving operators with funding and a high price to maximise the government fiscus. But last year, when Nigeria tried to auction spectrum, MTN...
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