Ofcom chief admits 4G auction has become 'political football' If you were to calculate the estimated economic benefit of that it would massively dwarf the revenues from the auction. That is the game for us. All four of the mobile network operators - EE, O2, Vodafone and 3 - have signed up, as well as three firms interested in using 4G technology to run so-called "backhaul" communications in telecoms networks. For consumers, the technology will offer mobile internet access at least five times faster than 3G and comparable with fixed line home broadband. EE has already introduced its 4G network in some cities by reusing surplus 2G airwaves but it likely to want more spectrum to improve its coverage. O2, Vodafone and 3 are expected to introduce their competing services from spring onwards. Ofcom has made no estimate of how much the 4G sell-off will raise beyond setting a £1.4bn reserve for the 28 chunks of radio spectrum it plans to distribute among at least four of the bidders to guarantee competition. The Office of Budget responsibility estimated earlier this year the exchequer would gain £3.5bn and George Osborne factored the cash into his autumn statement. Ed Balls has said Labour would spend the windfall building 100,000 affordable homes to stimulate growth. Telecoms analysts claimed the OBR estimate was over-optimistic, however. Mr Richards said he had explained to the Treasury that Ofcom could not and would not provide its own estimate. He had no input into the OBR's calculations. It is not a matter for us. It is a political football only between the parties," he said in response to questions at a media briefing. Revenue maximisation is not the objective and we have not made a forecast about how much it will raise. We don't know. We will be judging the auction ourselves on whether we believe it had successfully produced an efficient outcome in which the bidders are able to express their preference... such that we're confident that the spectrum will be used in the most efficient way. We will not be judging it by the amount it raises, whether it raises more than £3.5bn or less than £3.5bn. I've no idea which it will be. The auction will be conducted in secrecy online. Bidders will first tell regulators what combination of chunks of spectrum they are interested in owning and how much they would be willing to pay for it. Through a series of rounds, the price will rise in increments of at least five per cent. The winner will pay the lowest price that is greater than any other bid, in similar style to an eBay auction. A second process will then give them the chance to bid on other lots in the hope they can still win a useful combination of spectrum chunks. To run a national 4G mobile broadband network, operators will ideally want licences for both 800MHz, which is best for covering wide areas, and 2.6GHz which is useful in densely populated areas as it offers more capacity.