The third generation UMTS auction in Gremany raised an enormous amount of revenue, and the same time achieved a more competitive market structure than other UMTS auctions in Europe. The present paper explains the design of that auction, and presents a game theoretic explanation of observed...

We briefly survey several insights about value and revenue maximization in multi-object auctions and apply them to the German (and Austrian) UMTS auction. In particular, we discuss in detail the exposure problem that caused firms in Germany to pay almost Euro 20 billion for nothing.

In this paper the author reviews the Dutch UMTS-auction that took place in the summer of 2000 and which, in contrast to the UK and German auctions, was generally considered to be a major flop. He analyses the policy process leading to the auctions as well as the bidding behaviour in the auction,...