Will Vodafone And O2 Concede Spectrum to Digital Britain?

 

Vodafone and O2 Broadband have been asked by the UK telco regulator, Ofcom, to surrender the portion of the 900 MHz mobile spectrum, allotted to them. These portions would be auctioned out to a third operator, for providing access to wireless broadband services in rural areas.

UK Communications Minister, Stephen Carter, had planned to offer broadband access to all parts of the UK, by 2012, with their Digital Britain policy. However, the achievable speed would be just 2Mbps . Even though wired networks are expanding across the country, it is believed that wireless networking can offer connectivity to all parts of the UK. The government had given the industry until the end of April, 2009, to agree for a set of spectrum trades, for this purpose, failing which, Ofcom would be setting out an imposed regulatory solution.

Vodafone and O2 had previously rejected a similar proposal from Ofcom in 2007.