High time that coercion is used to strip some mobile broadband spectrum off O2 and Vodafone?
Lend an ear to Jane Cooper’s viewpoint that it was unfair for O2 and Vodafone to cling on to the most precious spectrum in the country since 1982, when Orange, T-Mobile and 3 UK entered the market in 1994, 1994 and 2003 respectively. It is also interesting to watch her dubbing the incident as an ‘unfair accident in the history’ that the big duo had between them such valuable spectrum. Cooper is the mobile and spectrum economic regulation head at Orange PCS Limited.
This can also be the general thinking of the public in the United Kingdom at this point of time when even a highly previleged man in terms of broadband access (at least) like the BT Chairman Sir Michael Rake is not able to get broadband in his home at Hambledon Valley in Hampshire. Perhaps BT can ease this out by placing the area under a prioritised connection group in their big-time fibre rollout that is engaged to cover 40 percent of the country.
Here, if something can be called pathetic, it would obviously be the case of millions who are languishing with incompetent broadband speeds or even no service at all, in the rural remotes of the country. Particularly, when BT has revealed its limitations in serving the extra 30 percent of the population with its aged ADSL lines. Read this along with the 2Mbps broadband for all by 2012 promise of the government, published in the Digital Britain report.
When the campaigners and critics started flaying the government for its lack of foresightedness following BT’s disclosure of the fact, it had promptly announced that mobile broadband was the viable alternative, it was looking forward to. Only to land in another muddy puddle as things were nothing less than war-ridden there.
Today, many people fear that the government, out of anxiety may adapt a top down policy of appeasing the intransigent networks in the first place and later attending to the woes of the general public. The placating package of the government may worsen the issue, as the operators once handed over the spectrum, might once again resort to their current operational mode of setting up services in the most profitable areas, leaving well behind their rural commitments.
A good number of analysts in the country disagrees with the appeasement package proposal citing that it would only lead to the networks splitting capacity to hold back speeds, as getting returns from sparcely populated areas where accessing speeds were quite critical, was unlikely for five or six competing networks. The alternative plan advocated by the critics was the nurturing of a single large capacity network.
An all in one network that would serve like a Railtrack for trains, was the precise concept of these people. Here from the huge capacity national network, according to them, operators bid to gain a geographic area. However, Cooper has downplayed the idea stating that this solution had not gained much traction, particularly for its lacking conduction to competition, which is agreed by all operators. According to Terry Norman, another broadband expert in the UK, ISPs such as O2, Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3 should have been resorting to a pragmatic approach to the issue by seeking the government’s permission to share spectrum in rural areas.
