The Austrian business units of Hutchison Whampoa and Deutsche Telekom plan to appeal against the result of the country’s recent 4G spectrum auction, according to Reuters.

The auction, which surpassed expectations when it raised in excess of €2 billion, is the most expensive per head of population in Europe for 4G frequencies.

Telekom Austria, the other operator to secure frequencies, has reportedly said it will decide next month whether or not to file an official complaint.

The main gripe is that the auction rules were too strict. No bidder, for example, had any idea what the other was putting on the table. While this prevented collusion, it also ramped up prices.

Another auction condition, which might have made operators more inclined to hike up prices, was that each bidder could snap up to 50 per cent of the spectrum going under the hammer. This carried the risk that one bidder might be left empty-handed (although the regulator has apparently said this would never have been allowed to happen).

Hutchison’s H3G is no doubt particularly aggrieved because it didn’t get its hands on any valuable 800MHz spectrum. It wants an auction re-run.

Jan Trionow, H3G’s CEO, said in a statement quoted by Reuters that “the auction process was illegal in form and in substance. [H3G] was considerably harmed. To simply accept this would be irresponsible.”

Telekom Austria paid most in the auction (€1.03 billion for 14 spectrum blocks), followed by T-Mobile (nine blocks for €654 million). Hutchison paid €330 million for five blocks.

According to the Reuters report, the Austrian courts are likely to take around two years to rule on the appeals. It means Austria’s operators will probably have to go ahead and roll out their 4G networks anyway, even though spectrum might be reallocated in the future.