ANKARA (Reuters) - Britain's Vodafone (L:VOD) and Turkish firms Avea (IS:TTKOM) and Turkcell (IS:TCELL) were the highest bidders in tenders for Turkey's fourth-generation (4G) network, the tender commission chairman said on Wednesday.
The 800 Mhz bandwidth to be used for the 4G network has been divided into packages, to be divided up broadly equally between the operators.
Vodafone offered the highest bid of 390 million euros ($447.17 million) for the A1 package and Avea the highest with 380 million euros for the A2 package, Deniz Yanik announced in the capital Ankara.
Turkcell's offer of 372.93 million euros was the largest for the A3 package, with the final results of the tender process expected later on Wednesday.
The tender was postponed in May, weeks after President Tayyip Erdogan urged Turkey not to "lose time" with 4G and to move straight to 5G, for which technical standards do not yet exist.
4G and 5G refer to the latest technology standards for mobile devices. Fourth-generation technology - which went mainstream worldwide around 2010 - enables users to watch videos and download big documents on their phones.
Fifth-generation is not expected to be ready for widespread commercial rollouts until 2020.
(This story corrects to show Avea bid 380 million euros for A2 package not 390 million in paragraph three)