In a worrying development for the UK mobile broadband sector it has been revealed that the UK’s leading mobile broadband providers have been unable to come to an agreement regarding the carve up of the frequencies available. As we covered in some of our earlier post, Vodafone and O2 have been under pressure for some time to release part of the spectrum they use at the moment to other broadband providers. The authorities had announced a compensation package some time ago, but both Vodafone and O2 believe the figures suggested in no way matched their investment to date and potential loss of income.
It now looks as though broadband and telecom authorities will need to work out a system to carve-up the existing spectrum and force mobile broadband providers in the UK to accept their solution. This is in no way the best case scenario for mobile broadband users in the country and has the potential to cause significant delay as the fine print and the compensation packages related to any government solution may take some time to complete. In many ways, for mobile broadband providers and UK broadband users this is a worst-case scenario and could yet again delay the U.K.’s development of a nationwide broadband network.