The Telstra Group Ltd (ASX: TLS) share price is edging lower on Thursday despite some good news.
In morning trade, the telco giant's shares are down 0.25% to $3.78.
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What's going on with the Telstra share price?
It seems that today's decline has been driven by broad market weakness which has offset the aforementioned good news.
In respect to the latter, according to an announcement, Telstra has successfully secured up to 110 MHz of additional 'mid band' spectrum in the 3.4 / 3.7 GHz spectrum auction held by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Telstra invested $546 million in this spectrum, which it expects to deliver even better 5G experiences to mobile customers across most parts of Australia. This includes securing an additional 80 MHz of spectrum in the key capital city markets of Sydney and Melbourne.
Management notes that it acquired a large proportion of the available spectrum at a highly competitive price. This sets up its mid-band spectrum assets for the next 20 years.
As a comparison, TPG Telecom Ltd (ASX: TPG) has also announced that it has secured spectrum to boost its 5G mobile and fixed wireless services. It paid $128.2 million for spectrum in metropolitan and regional areas.
Back to Telstra. It believes the spectrum acquired is the foundation for increasing capacity to support growing demand across metro and regional areas and will enable a significant enhancement in customer network experience and speed.
Telstra's CEO, Vicki Brady, commented:
5G has completely changed how we use mobile devices and we continue to see customers' demand for data growing. Adding this mid-band spectrum to our network means our customers will get an even better and more consistent mobile experience through more capacity to carry data.
This investment moves our mobile leadership forward and enables Telstra to continue to pioneer future capabilities and generations of mobile technology for Australia. Alongside our existing spectrum holdings, the additional 55 to 110 MHz means we'll continue to differentiate ourselves in a competitive market.
Payments to the Australian Communications and Media Authority will be due in FY 2024 and are excluded from its free cashflow after lease payments (FCFaL) guidance of $2.8 billion to $3.2 billion.
