German spectrum auction reaps 5.08 billion euros

FRANKFURT, June 19 (Reuters) - Bidding ended on Friday in Germany's auction of radio frequencies for mobile phone network operators, with total bids of 5.08 billion euros ($5.75 billion) after 181 rounds in 16 days of bidding, the German telecoms regulator said.

Deutsche Telekom (Xetra: 555750 - news) , Telefonica Deutschland and Vodafone vied for new blocks of airwaves to satisfy growing consumer demand for streaming video and other data-consuming applications.

Vodafone bid the most with 2.1 billion euros, followed by Deutsche Telekom with 1.8 billion and Telefonica Deutschland with 1.2 billion.

Analysts had expected the auction to raise a maximum of 4 to 5 billion euros, far below the 50.8 billion euros the government raised in the auction in 2000 for new 3G network licenses, when there were six groups bidding.

Germany started the auction three weeks ago, setting a floor of 1.5 billion euros. ($1 = 0.8839 euros) (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Georgina Prodhan)