How does the auction work?
Upon registering, each person/couple will receive an auction program and a bidder number. After making some brief opening statements, the auctioneer will start the bidding on the first item. Each item will have a preset minimum bid, which is the lowest price the item will sell for. Each prospective bidder will raise their bidder number to get the auctioneers’ attention when they wish to bid. The auctioneer will announce each bid and when the bidding ceases on that item, we have a winner.
A. The auction is an open auction, meaning that you can always see the current high bid and you can bid as many times as you like until the auction closes. However, you can only bid as many points as you have in your available point balance. Each auction will have a minimum opening bid which shows the minimum number of points needed to start the auction and minimum bid increments that are needed for each bid.
The auction takes place in a sequence of rounds with bids submitted by fax to the Radiocommunications Agency s headquarters in Docklands. In each round participants bid simultaneously for any one of the five licences (except that existing operators may not bid for licence A reserved for new entrants. At the end of each round bidders are advised of all bids made. The holder of the highest bid on each licence (known as the Current Price bidder) is required to remain inactive in following rounds until outbid. The auction, which may last several weeks, will end when no further bids are received.
Rather than a live auction like youre probably used to, this is more like a silent auction. Instead of an auctioneer taking bids, there is an Auction Committee that oversees the entire bidding process. Instead of a number of people trying to outbid each other one after another, people submit their Maximum Bid; the computer stores the amount and submits bids for you according to a predetermined set of auction rules that are in the top menu bar under the heading Auction Rules. The benefit of this type of auction is not having to constantly submit one bid after another when you are outbid and, consequently, not having to follow the auction minute by minute as it unfolds (in a multi-day auction that would be very time consuming!) When the auction is finished, the person who has submitted the highest bid will buy the item for that amount plus applicable taxes.
