A reserve of £100,000 sterling (€165,371) has been set for Northern Ireland's first wireless telecoms licence. The sale of the licence is part of an auction being organised by the British government. It is selling 42 licences to run wireless links to the Internet and has put a total reserve price of £78 million on them.

The bidding for licences to connect desktop computers to the Internet using high-frequency radio links will commence on October 16th, said Mr Kim Howells, Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs.

Companies wishing to participate in the 28 gigahertz broadband fixed wireless access auction must apply by September 5th, Mr Howells said. Successful qualifiers will be notified on September 20th.

A number of companies based in the Republic may bid for the Northern Ireland licence. These include Eircom, Esat Telecom, now part of British Telecom, Irish Multichannel, and Formus Communications. These companies have already been awarded wireless licences in the Republic.

"We will be looking at the business case and weighing up all the pros and cons to decide if we will participate in the auction," said Mr Charlie Ardagh, Formus director of corporate communications.

"Broadband fixed wireless access offers an enhanced service that benefits both business and consumers with cheap, fast Internet and multimedia access by radio links instead of a telephone line," Mr Howells said.

The government is selling three licences in each of 11 English regions, plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The reserve prices range from £4 million in London to £100,000 in Northern Ireland.

Each licence will last 15 years and carry "use it or lose it" obligations to ensure services are rolled out on time.