British Regulator Investigated Over Low 4G Auction Revenue

judgecorp writes "Ofcom, the British telecom regulator, raised £2.3 billion in the 4G spectrum auction when the government had hoped for £3.5 billion. Now Ofcom's auction is being investigated by the National Audit Office over whether it provided value for money for the British taxpayer. Ironically, the auction resulted in a low price but spread the bandwidth amongst rival firms, and so provided better value than if the auction had created a partial monopoly or (as happened in the 3G auctions in 2000) gouged as much money as possible from the operators leaving them unable to actually build a network."