Swiss forced to abandon 'phones auction

The Swiss government has postponed an auction of licenses for a new generation of mobile telephones, which it had hoped would raise hundreds-of-millions of dollars in revenue.

The move came after it was announced that two of the five companies bidding for the licenses had agreed to merge.

As only four licences were up for auction, the government decided this eliminated the element of competition for them.

The authorities say they will launch an investigation to see if the merger move was a result of collusion. A similar auction in Britain raised more than thirty-billion dollars and another in Germany forty-four billion -- money the two governments have used to pay off national debt or reduce taxes.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service