Ofcom updates 4G auction proposals

[Ben]

I don't understand why the obligation has to be by % of population covered, though, surely stipulating a % of geographical coverage would be more effective at ensuring rural areas get covered.

The article mentions the possibility of mandating not-spots be covered, rather than 98% of the population, and that's the route I'm hoping they take. I think it'll be more effective - we all know 98% of the population means diddly squat in terms of geographic coverage once the networks have made up their coverage stats.

As for Everything Everywhere, well, hopefully the fact that O2 and Vodafone are singing a much happier tune, that new-entrant Three seems to still be happy with, will somewhat muffle their displeasure. In fact, as they're by far the biggest network now, Ofcom should take pleasure in the fact that everyone but the biggest network is placated.

[Wilt]

The only issue with the 'not spot' route, is how do you define a 'not spot'? Or perhaps more importantly, who will be defining it?

Will it be the operator? In which case, are they only going to go as far as providing a token effort then giving up when the £150million is exhausted?

Or are Ofcom going to try and do it? Are they even allowed to tell a private company where they must place resources?

[Ben]

That's the thing, I don't think it specifies, at least not in the news reports. If Ofcom specifies the areas that must be covered then we should be ok.

I think Germany did a similar thing and it worked really well. At the end of the day, if the condition is only tied to one license then there's no obligation on any private company to bid for it.

[Hands0n]

This is a good plan, generally. The only thing is that the networks must not be permitted to cause any further delays. We are already 18 - 24 months behind the rest of Europe!

[gorilla]

The level of coverage is always going to be contentious, particularly in the more rural regions.
As Hands0n says above, this needs to be sorted quickly. My home broadband is going to be 100Mbps by the time I get 4G (and maybe faster if I pay for it) so the mobile operators will need to be competing with that, otherwise what is the point?
At the minute I'd take getting 3G everywhere, not just in rural areas but within buildings.

What is happening to 2G (GSM?) when we finally get 4G?

[Ben]

What is happening to 2G (GSM?) when we finally get 4G?

I think there'll be thin GSM coverage around for some time yet. I'm not sure how it works technically, but I think it can hang on even with WCDMA slowly encroaching on its territory.

[hecatae]

so would we see 2G + 3G + 4G sim cards or do you think we will see 3G + 4G only sim cards?

[Wilt]

This is a good plan, generally. The only thing is that the networks must not be permitted to cause any further delays. We are already 18 - 24 months behind the rest of Europe!

True, although the spectrum isn't available yet anyway so I don't think the auction delay will push back actual roll-out by too much. I would assume all of the networks will be planning how they're going to roll out LTE based upon what spectrum allocation they anticipate getting.