South Korea’s government pushed back a spectrum auction planned for this month after failing to reach an agreement with mobile operators on which freqencies to sell, Yonhap News Agency reported.

A Ministry of Science and Technology representative told the news service the auction was delayed without revealing a new date.

SK Telecom (SKT) and KT had cried foul over plans to auction 20MHz of 3.4GHz spectrum following a request by LG Uplus. The allocation suits the operator’s holdings of 80MHz in the 3.4GHz to 3.5GHz range and would be more costly for its rivals to deploy.

Last month, SKT asked the ministry to allocate 40MHz of spectrum in frequencies above 3.7GHz in a move to acquire adjacent bands to optimise its network.

Yonhap News Agency wrote the ministry has not made a decision on holding a separate auction for the requested spectrum.

SKT and KT each hold 100MHz of mid-band spectrum in the 3.6GHz to 3.7GHz and 3.5GHz to 3.6GHz ranges, respectively.

All three operators have also launched limited 5G services using mmWave.