Meek: wrong time to fix Digital Britain mobile broadband quandry

The Government’s moves towards bringing about a Digital Britain have come at “wrong point in the electoral cycle.” That’s according to Kip Meek who, in his role as Independent Spectrum Broker (IBS), has been trying – and failing – to establish a consensus on how to solve a problem like mobile broadband.

Blessed ain’t the Meek

Mr Meek has been trying to cut a deal with the mobile phone operators to help achieve one of Digital Britain’s loftiest goals: a Universal Service Commitment of 2Mbit/s for every home in the land. His proposals include that the frequencies Vodafone and O2 currently use for voice and text services be refarmed for mobile broadband; in exchange for shelling out on the infrastructure that’s required to actually make that work, all five of the big mobile firms will be granted indefinite extensions to the licences they hold covering the 3G spectrum (due to expire in 2021).

Trying to redistribute the mobile spectrum has proved about as straightforward as the old left-wing politician’s dream of the redistribution of wealth: those who are quite happy with the way things are tend to have enough clout to avoid being forced into sharing. But that’s not been the only barrier to progress: legal challenges have even thwarted Meek’s plans to auction off a currently untapped frequency.

A “policy-making orphan”

Speaking at the Westminister Media eForum, the IBS has revealed it’s now unlikely licences covering the new 2.6GMHz band – well suited for the sort of 4G mobile technology capable of supporting up to 1Gbit/s broadband - will be up for grabs any time this year. For him, that’s partly because the whole mobile spectrum question has become what he cryptically calls a “policy-making orphan.”

“This is a very difficult and opaque subject – it’s very difficult for politicians and policy makers to get excited about it,” he admitted (presumably, then,they aren’t very interested in orphans?). ”But mobile [is one of the areas] where all the innovation is going to be over the next few years. We in the UK have the opportunity to be a player in the implementation of next generation mobile. I would urge politicians to focus on these issues even though they are difficult and opaque.”

But while politicians may struggle to put their heart into - or even get their heads round - solving digital issues, Meek claims it’s not the Government’s fault things are taking so long (his final recommendations were published back in May last year.) “The Conservatives were wrong to say that the problem with Digital Britain was that it was yet another set of proposals, fairly green proposals. These are incredibly complicated issues and not rushing one’s fences at these issues is important.”

No time at the present

“The whole process, of which I was a part as the Independent Spectrum Broker, was the wrong point in the electoral cycle,” he continued. ”Governments do not have any choice about that. The importance of this point is for the next government, be it Tory or Labour or some other: the issues that Digital Britain was grappling with, of which this [spectrum] was an important part, are extremely complicated. It’s better to have a run at them.”

The Conservatives have of course indicated that they might do things differently if they get into Government – and it now looks like the next election could be in less than four months time. Lucky, then, that Meek also appears to welcome new paymasters even as he attempts to salvage the credibility of his current one. “I hope that after the election we can look at some of these issues again. Those we have not made progress on we can take a fresh view on.” Let’s just hope it is just “some” and not “all” of the issues that’ll be reconsidered.

Tags: 3G, 4G, Broadband, Digital Britain, IBS, Kip Meek, mobile, Universal Service Commitment, USC