Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA) on Tuesday announced the results of the first-ever spectrum assignment auction conducted on June 30 in Kabul for mobile service providers in the country. 

The auction resulted in government-owned Afghan Telecom winning one block of 2x5MHz spectrum in the 1800MHz band at the price of US$ 17.2 million, ATRA said in a statement.  

The goal of the radio frequency spectrum auction was to provide the telecom service providers with an opportunity to bid for additional spectrum resources in the three bands of 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2600 MHz.  

The service providers need these frequency bands to provide advanced mobile broadband and 4G services.  

The auction was held in compliance with ATRA’s spectrum assignment Policy Paper/Decision (PPD) approved by the High Economic Council (HEC) of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in 2019, ATRA said.  

The statement said that the auction was conducted "following best international practices and standards and was supported and facilitated by international regulatory and auction experts."  

As the first national experience of its kind in Afghanistan, the auction was open for all bidders, ATRA says, adding that the results of the auction have been put forward by Innovative Auctions, an independent international organization, that used a complex auction software and methods to conduct and evaluate the auction results through a transparent process.  

The entire process was overseen by an Inter-ministerial Committee and members of ATRA High Council, ATRA says.