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Ofcom to claw back 900 MHz spectrumNot content with taking a cool £22.5 billion off mobile operators for their 3G licenses, UK industry watchdog – Ofcom – now wants to snatch some spectrum back in the 900 MHz range. This looks like a thinly disguised attempt to raise more money from the UK's spectrum allocation. The proposal includes the ominous sentence, "The spectrum that is released will be awarded by Ofcom, probably using an auction as that is likely to be the best way to find the most effective users of the spectrum." This whole thing is bad news for Vodafone but it's worse for O2. Only Recently, Mobile Software Insight revealed that O2 is left stranded as the only UK operator not planning to radio share with another mobile network. Out of the five UK networks, only Vodafone and O2 possess spectrum at 900 MHz. And Ofcom says that in the auction of the stolen bandwidth, no company with an existing 900 MHz license can bid. What Ofcom intends to do is change the rules as to how 900 MHz can be used. By European convention, it's supposed to be used for 2G telephony only. Ofcom intends to alter that and allow 900 MHz to be used for 3G. There's several advantages to doing this. Firstly 900 MHz is better for rural areas. Secondly it provides better in-building coverage. Thirdly, Ofcom says it should be possible to build a high quality mobile broadband network covering 99 per cent of population using around 10,000 fewer sites per operator. So it's environmentally friendly, too. What's curious is that the proposals make no mention of UMTS TDD (Time-Division-Duplexing) otherwise known as TD-CDMA which uses TDD instead of the FDD (Frequency Division) that regular 3G (W-CDMA) uses. Why's this relevant? Well, because UK mobile operators should already have spectrum that is specifically allocated to IMT-2000 TDD technologies. These bands include both the 1900 – 1920 MHz and the 2010 – 2025 MHz bands. What's UMTS TTD used for? It's specifically aimed at providing mobile broadband services. Which is exactly what Ofcom wants to use the stolen 900 MHz spectrum for. If Ofcom is truly serious about getting cheaper mobile broadband to UK users, and not just trying to raise more money, then it should be forcing the existing networks to do something with their TDD allocations.The full Inquirer story ...
Ofcom wants to sell 900 MHz bandwidth |
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