Every time I promise myself I won’t do another OPEL story, there is some other intriguing twist that draws me back to the blog.

Last week, under cover of the Friday afternoon media rain-shadow, the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) slipped out an innocuous announcement about a radio spectrum auction (www.acma.gov.au).

The announcement invites applications for the auction of spectrum to be use for “fixed (point to multipoint) apparatus licences for wireless access services in regional and remote areas of Australia.”

Anybody know anybody who needs some of this?

It is something of a good news/bad new story for OPEL.

The good news is this 1900-1920MHz spectrum is suitable for WiMAX.

The bad news is, no vendors currently mass produce WiMAX equipment for this spectrum.

The good news is, if you have $1 billion burning a hole in your pocket, you can afford to get a vendor to custom-make the equipment for you.

Lucky old OPEL, this could be just the break they need. They could limit costly negotiation with AUSTAR for access to its spectrum, and bag a bargain at auction. An auction for an adjacent block of spectrum last year failed for lack of interest.

According to CommsDay (3/9/07) there is a contingency in case there is only one bidder: “ACMA has divided the 1900–1920MHz band is divided into four 5MHz wide channels and licensees will not be assigned more than 10MHz in the same area. The limit will include any existing wireless access service licences. Each license has a $2,000 reserve but will be sold at a predetermined $82 should there be only one bidder.”

Is this a case of manna from heaven, or does it help to have friends in high places here on earth?