Political Action ahead could see Spectrum Auctions Disrupted

The United Kingdom faces disruption of the radio spectrum auctions planned by the current government, in the year’s political developments that could result from the upcoming general election.

It is quite apparent that the telecommunications regulator of the United Kingdom, Ofcom had long cherished plans to auction off two radio spectrum chunks – one of around 2.6GHz that was previusly earmarked for 3G mobile broadband services, and and the other of around 800MHz. The fixed-line and mobile broadband internet market experts in the United Kingdom has started thinking about the viability of the spectrum re-using plans of the current government, in the light of a more obtruding fact that the regulator itself getting abolished in the near future.

Therefore, now it is almost confirmed that the efforts to inject fresh services on the UK radio spectrum’s little-used areas would hit an iceberg that would start melting by only by next year. Ironically, by this time a changed government might just have the regulator itself abolished, as the Tories have already pledged to do this once they assume the power.

Meanwhile, those supporters of the spectrum auction that persistently seek a loop hole to carry on with the auction process, any such moves are shelved currently due to a prevailing political indecision, which was revealed by the experts that spoke at a Westminster eForum’s public discussion.

It is quite interesting to see that even the person who was bestowed upon the onus of carrying out the auctions smoothly and at the earliest by the Labour government, Kip Meek saying that ‘a policy making orphan’ was what the spectrum issue had turned out to be. It was not just Meek who had turned a pessimist regarding the issue, but also many others including Rod Kirwan, Denton Wilde Sapte’s telecoms lawyer that said he did not think the auction would happen in 2010.