I wasn't aware of Lightsquared. But it seems like they were a "new player". If you look at the winning bids of the "Digitale Dividene (= digital dividend) I" an

I wasn't aware of Lightsquared. But it seems like they were a "new player". If you look at the winning bids of the "Digitale Dividene (= digital dividend) I" and "Digitale Dividende II" in Germany it's easy to see that you have to be a big player to have real chances (or being even allowed to bid) in those frequency auctions. "Digitale Dividende I": six 5 Mhz wide bands (always in "pairs") each between 570.849 and 627.317 million €. Winners: O2, Telekom, Vodafone. (source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitale_Dividende#Frequenzversteigerung_2010 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitale_Dividende#Frequenzver...) "Digitale Dividende II": thirty-one 5 Mhz wide bands (some of them "paired") each between 39.011 and 255.967 million €. Winners: Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica (formerly O2). (source: http://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/cln_1432/DE/Sachgebiete/Telekommunikation/Unternehmen_Institutionen/Frequenzen/Projekt2016_Frequenzauktion/projekt2016-node.html http://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/cln_1432/DE/Sachgebiete/Tele...) Further I know of some radio stations (especially community radios) which refuse to accept special offers from broadcast carriers for digital radio (DAB+ and DVB-T(2)) broadcasting because of the fear that this could be used as another argument against them having an own analog FM frequency.