Following the promise made by Lord Carter to provide every home in the UK with broadband connections by 2012 a meeting with will take place this week with the five main mobile phone providers in the UK in a further attempt work out a deal.

Recent proposals by Kip Meek to free up some of the capacity that will be created when the analogue TV signal is turned off and use it to increase mobile broadband spectrum whilst at the same time talking about placing a cap on how much mobile phone spectrum both O2 and Vodafone are allowed to own seem to have led to this impending meeting.

The spectrum O2 and Vodafone were allocated back in 1980 for broadband related services will now enable them to use it almost a year before the availability of the TV signal, which is something that the other mobile phone providers like T-Mobile, 3 and Orange have an issue with. These providers argue that when the TV capacity, which is perfectly suited to offering mobile broadband in the more rural areas, is released to providers, both Vodafone and O2 are capped in such a way that until they sell of some of the capacity they currently hold they will not be allowed to obtain any more spectrum.

The problem for Carter at the moment is that the promise he made in his interim Digital Britain report back in January to give every home in the UK a broadband connection by 2012 with a connection speed of at least 2Mbps has hit a barrier. As it stands the current telecommunications network is not capable of providing 1.5 million homes with this kind of connection speed, according to Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, and this is the key reason why Carter is desperate to reach an agreement with all the providers before June release of his final Digital Britain report.

It is possible that Carter may have to resign himself to a new timetable of 2015 before everyone in the UK can get online if he is unable to make a deal that all five network are happy with.

Source – www.guardian.co.uk