April 23, 2010 - Germany's mobile spectrum auction broke the EUR1 billion mark on the ninth day of the auction Thursday to stand at EUR1.32 billion.

German network regulator Bundesnetzagentur said Friday, and analysts say proceeds from the entire auction could reach up to EUR8 billion.

Auction isn't open to all mobile operators. Germany's federal network regular admitted only Vodafone, T-Mobile, E-Plus, and O2 to the bidding.

The four operators are bidding in frequency auctions in the ranges 800 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz and 2.6 GHz. The regulator is offering a total of 41 frequency blocks across the four frequency bands, which are expected to be used for LTE network deployments.