CTU plans to open bidding in a mobile spectrum tender today, less than a week after Spain’s Telefonica SA agreed to sell 65.9% stake in Telefonica CR to PPF. CTU wants the auction to expand competition in the local market, long dominated by the three large telecommunication providers (Telefonica CR, T-Mobile CR, CR), by allocating a frequency band to a new player. Revolution Mobile, a former unit of PPF, and Czech billionaire Karel Komarek’s Sazka Communications, registered to take part. The auction rules also require winners to hold the frequencies for at least seven years before being allowed to sell them. CTU expects the auction, which includes frequencies that will enable providers to offer new 4G mobile services, to raise at least 8.72 bln. CZK.