Ofcom defends decision to delay 4G auction

One of the most talked-about news this year was the impending 4G spectrum auction and Ofcom’s decision to eventually postpone it to a much later date next year. The high mobile data demand in the UK lately has pushed various networks to begin looking for more spectrum in order to run without going over capacity. The auction was set to take place sometime in early of 2012. However, in a turn of events, regulator Ofcom announced that the auction was to be postponed while they conducted more consultations, stating: “We received a number of substantial and strongly argued responses to this consultation.”

Because of this move, the regulating body has received quite a lot of criticism from providers and industry analysts and leaders, such as the CTO of provider Timico, Trefor Davies, who said: “It sounds like [Ofcom is] starting to get some of this right with the desire to extended coverage. They do however need to remember that in more than one sense speed is of the essence here. Ofcom maintains that the current delay to the auction will not affect the start date for the LTE rollout.”

James Firth, the CEO of policy think tank firm Open Digital, also commented: “Some of the behaviour is not helping and the current operators are putting profits first – for them data isn’t worth anything. Ofcom and the Government need to get the spectrum allocated as soon as possible.”

The regulator has defended their move, however, by saying that the second round of consultations would be able to make the process of how the spectrum to be auctioned clearer. Aside from this, Ofcom also said that the work to be done in order to clear the bands would only be completed in 2013 anyway.

Director of Ofcom’s spectrum policy group, Hyacinth Nwana, said at an Intellect conference on 4G technology that the decision to postpone as well as the reasons behind it were by all means, within the rights of Ofcom, stating: “We make no apologies for going back to reconsult. We received very difficult and challenging responses to the first consultation, so we need to answer those and it won’t constrain the timetable for releasing the spectrum because of the clearance activities. Clearing the spectrum is only happening in a piecemeal fashion across the UK, and will only be cleared by 2013. We are comfortable with the [auction] timescales we have set out.”

He added: “It’s a significant engineering exercise to clear spectrum ahead of the awards and it’s not something that we have contended with before, but it will become a bigger issue for all spectrum regulators as we push for more spectrum.”