The decision means that there will be no further bidding rounds until Thursday morning at the earliest.

With only six bidders remaining in the hunt for the five licences, speculation has centred on which would be the last of the original 13 bidders to drop out.

The resumption of the auction was delayed on Tuesday by a fault on the phones at the Radiocommunications Agency.

The Department of Trade and Industry was examining whether the fault was connected to the introduction of new area dialling codes for millions of UK businesses and homes.

But the auction, in which bids have soared past expectations to total more than �22.3bn, eventually got going with round 146 taking place two hours later than planned.

That was followed swiftly by three more before NTL called the first of its permitted 'recess days', which suspend the auction for 24 hours.

The four existing mobile operators in the UK are each currently leading the running for a licence, with Canadian TIW leading the bidding for the licence reserved for new entrants to the UK market.

There has been speculation that France Telecom may see buying up-for-sale Orange as an alternative route to taking over a licence.

Vodafone battles BT

Before the Easter break much of the attention had focused on the battle between BT and Vodafone Airtouch for Licence B, the most powerful licence which existing UK mobile phone operators are able to bid for.

By the end of bidding before Easter Vodafone was back in front with a bid of �5.96bn for that licence.

BT did not bid against that on Tuesday, instead being top bidder for the cheaper, and less powerful Licence C.

The bidding for the five licences, which offer the prospect of high speed access to the internet via mobile phones, has soared to nearly �22.5bn ($36bn).

That is more than four times higher than most forecasts before the auction started last month.

"With six players in it, it just means that one person is bidding each round. The whole process is slowed down," said Jo Oliver, telecoms analyst at Lehman Brothers.

"It will take time therefore to wheedle out the least convicted player."