The government plans to direct Ofcom (the first it has ever done this) to implement the, glamorously titled, Wireless Spectrum Modernisation Programme. Through it, The Digital Dividend is about to become a reality, as analogue TV is switched off by the end of 2011. You, civil servants, parliamentarians and their researchers look on, slightly bemused, as those of us who live and breathe spectrum (it is thin air after all…) thrash out the GHz, the MHz, The LTE’s, The WiMax, the DVB T2’s, and all that go with them. All too often, the debate bypasses why these kinds of issues are crucial to Mr. Joe Voter, why real parliamentary engagement is so important and why UK Citizens need representation. Part of this process is making these issues understandable for those representatives.

So why is spectrum, and by implication the digital dividend, so important to your every day man, or woman, on the street?

In a word: connectivity. We are now in an era where people expect to be able to access data, for whatever means, wherever they are, when they want. What this data is used for is anyone’s guess, and it is probably unnecessary to go through the myriad number of applications that people are putting it to. But people want ‘it’, and ‘it’ is no longer considered a luxury. In fact, it is increasingly a utility. At a fundamental level, the ubiquitous use of devices such as iPhones, Blackberries and other devices requires spectrum. This spectrum is licensed from the government by the operators that run the networks. Without enough of it, in the right quantities and qualities, it’s perfectly possible that they might stop working en masse. We hope we never get to that point, and that is where government comes in. At the moment at least, government is the sole supplier of spectrum. Through its oversight of Ofcom, and through parliament’s approval of the statutory instruments that govern what Ofcom actually does, government is the ultimate arbiter of true connectivity. And boy do people want to say connected.

But there is a fundamental issue that puts this at risk: Our networks are already creaking at the seams. This Christmas, a major mobile network almost failed because of the level of data people wanted delivered to their handheld devices. As people got their shiny new presents out of the boxes and switched them on, demand for spectrum surged, in the same way that demand for electricity does when people turn on kettles during Coronation Street. To maintain, or even increase the connectivity that today’s electorate wants, more capacity to deliver that data is needed. The next generation of wireless networks (4G) will provide a broadband experience that is broadly analogous to that enjoyed in the home through a wi-fi connection. No-one is saying that 4G would be a like-for-like replacement for Wi-Fi delivered through your phone line into the house, and the user experience could vary if again, the number of users in area is very high, but this fact is nominally true. The point is that the public are already using 4G networks in the US and Russia. They soon will be in Germany and France. Why shouldn’t they in the UK? The answer is, at the moment, there isn’t the spectrum available. And where can we find that spectrum? The Digital Dividend. Then there is the much touted issue of the digital divide. It will cost at least £5bn to build a fixed network that supports Next Generation Broadband to all of the UK. The market can’t currently support an investment case for this, although they are trying their best and significant commitments have been made. There are some areas of the UK where simple economics dictate that connectivity (of the same quality as urban areas) is best achieved wirelessly. That connectivity needs the spectrum to be in place to support it. And where, yet again, is that spectrum? The Digital Dividend.

In providing the framework for how spectrum is allocated and used, policy makers are effectively dictating how connected their electorate is. The fact that 3.2m people are using an iPhone in the UK today, and that Vodafone recently sold 50,000 of them in a single day, shows how connected that electorate wants to be. There are votes to be had in promoting these issues.

As a final note, it is worth coming back to a fundamental principle that everyone does understand: competition. All this connectivity has to be facilitated through free competition between the providers of it. History teaches us that monopolies or cartels do not deliver services people want at the price they are prepared to pay. In effectively privatising the natural resources, or spectrum, that will deliver true connectivity, competition must be maintained as a prime consideration. It is this principle that parliamentarians debating the Governments direction to Ofcom on the Digital Dividend, due to take place before the general election, need to really take to heart.

Tags: 4G, Broadband, digital britain, Digital Dividend, Digital Economy Bill, Digital Switchover, NGA, Ofcom, Spectrum, Wireless, Wireless Spectrum Modernisation Programme

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Convergence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.