Thailand’s telecoms regulator announced plans to hold a 5G spectrum auction across three bands later this year, Bangkok Post reported.

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) established a team to draft the conditions for selling spectrum in the 26GHz, 28GHz and 2.6GHz bands. The regulator is considering using a hybrid auction model, with the winners decided based on both bid amount and the details of their 5G rollout proposals, the newspaper said.

Much of the spectrum in the 2.6GHz band is owned, but unused, by state-owned public broadcaster MCOT, which is negotiating with the government to return it for compensation.

The regulator first detailed plans to auction 2.6GHz spectrum in 2016, targeting the following year to conduct the process. But the sale was subsequently pushed back and no alternative announced.

NBTC is also preparing a sale of 700MHz spectrum in May despite a lack of interest from country’s three major mobile operators AIS, True Move and dtac, which have all spent billions of baht on spectrum over the past three years.

State-owned CAT Telecom is the only operator interested in the spectrum, with plans to find an overseas partner to make a joint bid, Bangkok Post reported.