Tech Desk 
Feb 09, 2026
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Monday announced that all bids in 5G spectrum auction are required to follow fixed pricing increments, with non-compliant bids automatically rejected or corrected by the system.
In the responses to consultation queries, the PTA said all bid prices need to be submitted in multiples of USD1,000, else the Electronic Auction System (EAS) will block bids that do not meet this requirement.
The telecom authority also clarified that in later auction rounds, bidders will be allowed to submit increase or decrease bids at any price between the opening price and the clock price, as long as the amount is rounded to the nearest USD 1,000.
How will Pakistan’s 5G spectrum be sold?
PTA said that the 5G spectrum auction will cover six different frequency bands, which include:
- 700 MHz.
- 1800 MHz.
- 2100 MHz.
- 2300 MHz.
- 2600 MHz.
- 3500 MHz.
Both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and TIme Division Duplex (TDD) bands will also be included in auction. Some of these bands, such as 700 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2600 MHz, and 3500 MHz, will be made available to cellular operators in Pakistan for the first time.
PTA has split the available spectrum into 62 lots of different sizes. The 700 MHz band will have three lots of 2×5 MHz each, 1800 MHz band will include three lots of 2×1.2 MHz, and the 2100 MHz band will have four lots of 2×5 MHz.
The authority has set some limits on how much spectrum any single bidder can own, which will maintain a fair competition during the 5G spectrum auction. The maximum overall cap os 348.5 MHz, which equals 40% of the total spectrum available.
