Spectrum sell-off to go ahead in summer despite EU plans

The digital switchover will result in television signals using less of the sky's radio spectrum, releasing large, high quality bands of it for other uses.

Ofcom has long favoured an almost purely commercial approach to the re-use of that spectrum. Rather than package it into sections for specific uses or impose strict conditions on its use it will simply sell off packages to the highest bidder for whatever purpose they deem fit, it said. The regulator has published a consultation document on its proposed methods.

"Ofcom’s consultation document proposes to release the spectrum in a way that will promote competition and innovation and allow the widest range of technologies and services to access the spectrum," said an Ofcom statement. "The licences would be tradable and flexible to allow users to determine the technology and services they provide and to change the use of the airwaves as new technologies and services emerge."

Ofcom said that the spectrum was likely to be used for more digital television stations, mobile broadband use and mobile media and mobile television uses. Industry observers have said that television broadcasters will be unlikely to be able to compete financially with the might of mobile phone networks for the spectrum in an open auction.

The 2000 auction for third generation (3G) phone network spectrum came at the height of the last internet and telecoms boom and generated £22.5 billion for the UK Government.

As spectrum is released across Europe the European Commission has said that it wants to harmonise certain bands of spectrum for certain kinds of use to make sure that technologies work across Europe.

There is no concrete proposal yet, though, and Ofcom's process will happen in advance of any fixed plan.

"The Commission’s communication proposed a common approach to the digital dividend and recommended identifying common bands that could be optimised by enabling ‘clusters’ of services," said the consultation document. "The Communication concludes its Communication by indicating that the Commission will prepare the required measures to reserve and coordinate the common bands at EU level. Such initiatives are likely to have a bearing on the future use and value of the digital dividend in the UK."

Ofcom said, though, that it would go ahead with its auction. "Our position remains that we will seek to hold the … award as quickly as possible … we consider that this is in the interests of citizens and consumers because of the benefits that should follow, linked to the potential for additional competition and innovation."

Ofcom said that it is necessary to engage in some management of the spectrum so that each package is usable by today's technologies. That raises some risks that that packaging will not be appropriate for future developments, it admitted.

"Of course, it is very likely that more potential uses will emerge in future as technology changes and innovators create new products," said the regulator's consultation document. "The benefits of these unknown uses could be as large as, or larger than, the benefits of uses that we can identify now. It may be that these technologies will not fit neatly into the spectrum packages that we propose for this award.

"However, spectrum packages cannot be infinitely flexible ... our proposals to make these licences fully tradable should alleviate some residual concerns about our inability to perfectly “future-proof” the licences to be awarded," it said. "The spectrum could be traded fully or partially. Partial trades could involve trading geographic or frequency parts of the licence. For example, if a future technology only required a 2.5 MHz bandwidth and a licensed user owned 5 MHz of spectrum, it could trade half of its licensed spectrum to another operator."