Ofcom - disconnected?
15:51 in News by Louis Mosley
Last week, Ofcom finally opened its long-awaited consultation on the auction of the 800MHz band of spectrum, the bit freed up by the switch from analogue to digital TV.
Low frequency spectrum, like this 800MHz band, has an extremely long range – up to a 40km radius from a base station - making it ideal for providing mobile broadband in sparsely-populated rural areas. Using this spectrum, 4G technologies like LTE could offer download speeds of around 5Mbps to 12 Mbps and upload speeds of between 2Mbps and 5Mbps.
4G mobile broadband could be the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to get everyone in rural Britain a basic broadband service.
The problem is that Ofcom doesn’t see it that way.
Ofcom will auction licences to use the 800MHz band to the highest bidders. These licences will come with conditions, the most important of which is the coverage obligation.
Ofcom is proposing to oblige licensees to a build a network that is capable of “providing mobile broadband with a sustained downlink speed of no less than 2Mbps with a 90% probability of indoor reception to an area within which at least 95% of the UK population lives.”
The first problem with this is that Ofcom has stopped at 95% of the population. That means 3m people won’t get mobile broadband.
The second problem is that these 3m people are the same people who don’t currently have access to decent fixed line broadband because they live in the most rural parts of Britain.
The third problem is that Ofcom has decided not to use this opportunity to address existing mobile phone notspots. Instead, it’s proposing to map the 4G network onto the current mobile network, i.e. if you can’t get a mobile signal where you live now, you won’t be able to get 4G.
So, Ofcom has decided that 3m people aren’t worth bothering about.
They reckon that the cost of obliging mobile companies to build more base stations, and thereby extend their mobile voice and broadband coverage in rural areas, is greater than the economic and social benefits that such coverage would bring to rural communities.
But Ofcom has no evidence for this conclusion. In paragraph 6.15 of the consultation, it admits to not even having tried to quantify the costs of obliging mobile phone companies to extend their coverage. And it’s made even less effort to quantify the potential benefits. When asked why it hadn’t done this work, Ofcom replied ‘it’s not our problem’.
So, what can we do about this?
Respond to the consultation. Questions 6.1 to 6.5 are the relevant ones.
First, we must explain to Ofcom what kind of coverage we need, both in terms of range and specification, i.e. do we need coverage indoors? On our roads? In our fields? Everywhere? Is 2Mbps too little? (Bearing in mind that the costs rise exponentially). (Question 6.1)
Second, we must set out the benefits – the necessity - of extending mobile phone and broadband coverage into rural areas. The costs can best be estimated by the mobile phone companies themselves, but it will be our job to provide qualitative and quantitative evidence of the benefits. (Question 6.2)
Third, we must persuade Ofcom that this auction is a unique opportunity to tackle both the roll-out of mobile broadband and the existing lack of mobile telephone reception in rural Britain. (Question 6.4)
Ofcom and the Treasury will want to argue that the costs outweigh the benefits. To forego some of the billions of pounds that an auction could raise will be painful for the Treasury at a time of austerity. It will be hard to persuade these economists that investment in rural areas is justified: the costs of major infrastructure projects are easy to measure, the benefits are notoriously unquantifiable.
So, we need to make sure that the question of mobile voice and broadband coverage in rural areas becomes a political one.
The social and economic welfare of rural Britain is at stake. If Ofcom and the Treasury are determined to argue that an investment in rural infrastructure is uneconomic, we should demand that they put some robust figures on this graph:
And, simultaneously, we should begin the political campaign here. How do you think we go about doing this? Besides, responding to the consultation, I’d suggest a petition, a website, and a social media campaign for starters. Anyone got any good ideas for an awareness-raising publicity stunt? Let us know!
PS. Here’s a useful report from the Broadband Stakeholder Group on Wireless Broadband with costings.
Re your Ps and the BSG study done by Analysis mason about wireless and satellite solutions…
this says it all: ‘sponsored by Avanti, BT, talk talk, three astrium and ericson’. Say No More.
chris
It’s an interesting report. Worth a read. And at least it tries to cost different options. Its sponsors all have very different priorities and agendas, and aren’t necessarily pro-wireless or pro-satellite…
And regarding the main post above. If we get a real fibre network built for the rural areas of cumbria we can feed mobile from it, and literally have free or very cheap mobile for everyone. Everywhere.
chris
What you say is true, Chris, but you know that we’re not going to get a real fibre network built across the whole of rural Cumbria for a while yet. And mobile broadband would be a great stop-gap. Ofcom needs a push from you and everyone else. Otherwise, it’ll never use its powers to get the mobile operators to extend coverage. You could JFDI a mobile network, but why resort to that when we have yet to exhaust all the other options!
Since when has Ofcom ever listened to the people Louis? We have been telling them since 2005 that there are still loads of people who can’t get broadband but they haven’t taken a bit of notice. Their website still says that 99.6% of the country can get it. They won’t do anything to help us get mobile either. The suits take no notice of anything we say. Its up to us to jfdi and get the fibre in ourselves. Anything else is wasting our resources. Divide and rule? Have you any inside information that if we raised our voice it would have any effect this time? If the auction raises billions like last time the money would be better spent bringing some fibre in to rural areas, feeding the mobile masts on the way and building more of our own.
Hi Chris, Ofcom are running a public consultation and they’re inviting us to respond. They may not want to listen, but if thousands of us make a case for extending coverage by setting out the social and economic benefits, they can’t ignore us for long. The point is that Ofcom has the power to impose a coverage obligation on mobile. They’re suggesting a 95% obligation, but we should push them to 98% or 99% or even higher. This is our opportunity. Once the consultation is closed, Ofcom will be free to carry on taking no notice.
it has been written (I forget where) that if you place too high a coverage requirement on the licenses then they won’t sell.
O2 for example came close to getting fined for not hitting its 3G obligations several years after the auction.
Ok Louis. We already have a website here. no point in making another. We have a petition going on here for ubiquitous broadband for us, what effect has it had? Lets have one on here for Ofcom, keep everything in the same place? It will serve as a historical reminder of our work if nothing else. Perhaps you could put a ‘they work for you’ button on the home page and we can bombard the MPs with emails again.
As for a social media campaign I am all up for that, but doubt its effectiveness, too many in cumbria can’t get a decent connection to participate and the suits don’t use social media anyway, their emails are handed to them on dead trees and the internet is a mystery to most.
But. There is no harm in trying. The Good Lord loves a trier as my gran used to say. You hum it, we’ll play it, but don’t hold your breath. They aren’t the slightest bit interested in us. We are better off digging. I would love to be proved wrong. Ubiquitous mobile coverage would be mega, but our goal is NGA, futureproof internet access for everyone. Not stopgaps.
chris
Louis, I assume Rory has written to Ofcom on our behalf? What can the govt do to help us in this cause? Anyway, I have made comments on the consultation lobbying for spectrum to be made available to support rural communities in the “additional comments” box, and as everything else is reasonably technical/I don’t feel qualified/involved enough to answer, I’ve just written “see additional comments”!
I’m inclined to agree with Chris on social media, not something you tend to use alot with slow broadband - there are only 427 active members on this site and only 78 facebook “likes”.
As for the publicity stunt, I expect you to run through the House of Commons naked screaming “Broadband for Cumbria!”. That should do it
Hi Grant, yes, Rory’s on their case, but the more responses to the consultation, the better. It’s all to easy for government bods to forget about the problem, living and working in Central London. And, most important of all, if lots of people fill out the consultation, I might not have to run through the House of Commons naked… !
gosh Louis, don’t be a killjoy. go for it. JFDI. that’s the way to get publicity for the cause for sure.
http://www.cable.co.uk/news/uk-may-have-to-wait-years-for-4g-mobile-broadband-800483765/ - so let me guess… if the uk has to wait years, how long will the rural areas have to wait? I guess as long as infinity.
we have far more chance of that happening than us getting broadband any other way than JFDI ourselves.
Grant, my money is also on Louis running naked through the house of commons…
Agreed, 2013 is a bit of a wait, but it may take just as long to see the first benefits of BDUK’s £530m investment in fixed line broadband. In Germany, they sold the 4G licences with ‘rural first’ obligations. In other words, operators have to build the infrastructure in the rural parts of the country before they’re allowed in to the cities. The result is that they’re racing to get the rural bits done so that they can start making money in the cities. We could do the same thing here!
Louis,
2013 is rather more serious than “a bit of a wait” and the real concern is your presumably informed observation that “it may take just as long to see the first benefits of BDUK’s £530m investment in fixed line broadband.”
Decent broadband for Cumbrian communities is being delayed right now by the total lack of delivery by BDUK on the one hand and the uncertainty of where and how any invention by BDUK might take place on the other hand.
Who benefits from this delay Louis?
Certainly not the residents and businesses of Cumbria that for sure!
No, the only beneficiaries of delay are those who have most to lose from communities getting affordable future-proof access to Digital Services.
BT is an obvious candidate, with its obsolete access network of legacy copper wires.
NextGenUs has now been informed from reliable sources that even the proposed pilots are unlikely to result in beginning to deliver before 2012 and that means over a year since Rory’s Rheged broadband conference got folks fired up to JFDI.
So much for Big Society delivery beyond empty rhetoric.
Prior to that conference and the subsequent announcement of BDUK market testing in Cumbria, NextGenUs put forward clear proposals to build FttH and FiWi networks WITHOUT PUBLIC SUBSIDY for any community ready to step up.
The existence of BDUK has prevented this from progressing and seriously damaged the business of NextGenUs and its partners in the process.
The reality of the funding mooted as being on offer, rumoured to be a paltry £400k, has served as a shiny bauble to disrupt the market and prevent progress for rural communities across the UK.
This situation is an emerging national scandal and a matter that ministers can no longer credibly blame on the previous Labour administration as we approach the first anniversary of the last General Election.
With Fujitsu’s recent announcement regarding £multi-billion market-led investment in rural FttH, it is time for Jeremy Hunt as the responsible minister to step up, admit his mistake in prematurely intervening in the market and accept that the advice he was given and rejected as “unproven” last summer.
How much more proof is required than the stalled process we see today in Cumbria?
It is time for a total ban on BDUK activities in the First Mile.
BDUK, to have any case to justify any of its expenditure of OUR MONEY, must curb its enthusiasm for meddling with the market and focus on something useful for a change:
e.g. steering county council PSN procurements towards including Dark Fibre to provide distance-independent affordable Fat Pipe backhaul for Digital Village Pumps.
Otherwise BDUK must be consigned to the recycling bin of history without further ado.
Access to Digital Services is too important for the UK as a whole to be left in the hands of those who have neither the experience nor wits to deliver.
Oh, and one more thing before I forget… we can get signals to go 40km already with our wifi, but unless we have the backhaul it isn’t a right lorra use. also we have to have line of sight. something that is really difficult in our beautiful county.
How do you plan to give everyone free mobile? What’s stopping the JFDI?!
Hi Peter, not planning to give everyone free mobile. On the contrary, they’d have to buy a monthly or PAYG contract with one of the operators. But I do think mobile broadband would help overcome digital exclusion. Lots of people are put off buying fixed-line broadband because of the cost. PAYG mobile contracts would solve that.
Nothing is stopping JFDI, except usual obstacles of cost & backhaul. But this should be an inspiration: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/midwales/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9360000/9360258.stm!
Mobile broadband is another thing which should be ubiquitous, but it isn’t the answer to rural problems. You can’t have the family computers running through a mobile contract. Difficult to run a business through mobile, I wouldn’t attempt it. The only good thing about it is that if it is ubiquitous more people will try it out, and it will make it a lot easier to keep in touch when ‘mobile’. The downside is if we go all out to try and get that our effort to get real internet access is diluted. There are only so many hours in a day. If we stick to our original plan, which is getting fibre out to the rural areas that same fibre can power up the masts, we can add more masts as we go through notspots (and like wales that can generate income) and if every home on fibre had a femtocell that would also boost the signal everywhere. This should remain our aim, to get fibre to the rurals. The rest will all fall into place once that is achieved. The BDUK money could have set the wheels in motion that wouldn’t have stopped until all of the county had a connection. If Barry’s plan had been implemented it would have generated income to do the rest of the rural areas. Shame that it isn’t gonna happen, but that is where our efforts should be focussing, not on mobile. Mobile is an added bonus. With our own fibre network we could have done our own mobile. Its called quadplay, everything through the fibre. Its the future. Other countries will do it. We will still be here in the copper slow lane waiting. Paying through the nose for a second rate service. Even the cities are gonna be stuck on copper phone lines for the foreseeable future. If we got the rural areas done with funding they would stimulate the market to deliver to the urban areas. Digitalbritian would really rock. No wonder BT are scared of us and have their top guys talking to all the councilors. eh?
PAYG in general is more expensive than contract, it only appeals to very low users, the financially excluded or those with unreliable income.
That Welsh mast must have the mobile companies laughing at its excessive cost.
I too think mobile is critical, by the time we get to see fibre it’s only purpose will be to connect to wireless base stations as everything will be hand held. Real risk of solving last year’s problem and missing next year’s.
If you want very high mobile coverage you need some anti-NIMBY regulations to facilitate it. Lake District valleys have taken 10 years to get just 1 or 2 mobile providers due to planning problems.
Hi Phil, interestingly Ofcom has found no evidence that planning or technical obstacles are the cause of mobile notspots - despite what we hear. Also, I hope regulation isn’t required. Communities should be given the choice. After all, they’re best placed to decide the trade-off between having mobile reception and blotting the view with a mast. Mobile operators and communities should work together.
I realyly think PAYG mobile broadband would make a huge difference to digital exclusion. As you say, low users, low/unreliable income will have cost-effective internet access for the first time.
The problem with “communities” is that a small vocal group can get in the way of a mobile base station proposal to the detriment of a larger group who would benefit from its provision. Also as it is “mobile” and “wireless” many of the beneficiaries aren’t represented in the “community” where the mast is sited.
Provision of broadband into Grasmere for example was certainly delayed by planning issues despite it being an existing (TV) mast hidden in a wood. Months soon become years.
If they stay at 15m or below in most places the existing code powers are probably adequate.
A parish council near me has a policy of objecting to any mast, so maybe OFCOM didn’t look in the right places !
That’s why you put some wheels on your mast. If they have wheels you don’t have the same planning issues.
Masts can also look like trees, or rocks. They don’t have to be big ugly things. They just need wheels. 
Councils are aware of things with wheels that attempt to make them non-permanent. In the case of mobile masts they need cables for links and power so hardly movable.
How is usage going to be free for everyone?
Louis - Chris said ‘ have free or very cheap mobile for everyone.’.
The link to the mobile mast in Wales is basically the Welsh government building a mast for £150k and letting the community run it. Interesting. Presumably the mobile companies have no problem with connecting to the masts (with radio?), just building them.
Chris - what does ‘that same fibre can power up the masts’ mean?
Also, you can now get mobile broadband on the summit of Mt Everest: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jqBgetgq7AcFkfBfsmS4Ah0NWs4g So why not the peaks in the national park…
put
lake district mast objection
into Google and then come back and see if you still need an answer
meant to say lake district mobile mast objection
The issue of the beneficiaries not being represented in the “community” where the mast is sited is problematic. But I still think that local communities should be given the choice: they see the benefits, but they also have to live with the aesthetic consequences.
One thought: it would be great if local communities interested in neighbourhood planning were to write a communications section into their plan, covering mobile and broadband infrastructure. Neighbourhood plans will go to a referendum: if 50% vote yes, the local authority will be forced to adopt it. That way democracy could be used to defeat small but vocal opposition groups (tyranny of the majority?!)
And, um, I hope it’s obvious what I really think of Ofcom research! (Btw what 90% or 95% coverage actually means is a whole other hornet’s nest).
Nice idea but what if every community said they do not want mobile masts in their area? Despite everyone owning a mobile.
Be lucky to get 50% out to vote… And I might want to vote yes for parts a, b and c and no for d, e & f.
Just one of many areas where local interests can clash with wider objectives I suspect.
Would your voting system require a majority of the electorate or of those voting
That OFCOM consultation is a day’s work to read it, let alone fully comprehend it !
I think you should be arguing for one section of spectrum to be unauctioned, and instead made available for community use. The success of WiFi shows what innovation is produced when spectrum is deregulated. And technologies like CDMA now exist for spectrum sharing - giving one operator exclusive use of a section of spectrum is like building a new motorway from London to Edinburgh for each make of car.
Forcing companies to do what is uneconomic for them is not the answer. The spectrum is the ‘property’ of the people as a whole; if one bit of spectrum were so made available, then communities could take the problem into their own hands, rather than relying on companies managing to work out a good business case.
Gerv
Realistically communities would buy equipment from approved suppliers and would actually need an experienced company to install and maintain it.
We have motorways and pylons already cutting through the rural areas to feed the cities. I don’t see why the infrastructure can’t be reused to feed the rural areas it goes through and bring feeds to them. The pylons already have fibre on the earth wire don’t they? If not they could have. They could also have transmitters on them. New masts could be designed to have no impact on the views. There are many artistic people in Cumbria who could design our own. That would kill many nimby arguments.
Motorways and pylons also feed Cumbria! Pylons are already used as mobile masts but masts have to be where they are needed.
Yes, fibre is in the earth wire but not feasible to intercept just to feed a mobile mast. I’m losing the plot on what the issue is here! What do you mean by ’reusing the infrastructure’? If a mobile company needs to connect a new mast it’s not a problem.
not sure I want an artist designing a transmitter, let alone an HV pylon! The earth wire fibre on HV pylons (formerly owned by Energis) doesn’t seem to get used for pylon mounted mobile base stations, one near me was originally microwave fed now BT have trenched something to it.
I’m not sure what will constitute a quorum for neighbourhood planning referendums, but 50% in favour will be the threshold for adoption. It’s in the Localism Bill, set to become law any minute.
The Ofcom report is a brute. Writing it like that (and that long) is a way to ensure that no one can digest it and therefore respond to the consultation unless they happen to employ a department to respond to that sort of thing!
What’s the cost of arranging a vote? And for what applications?
A parish poll costs about £600. They’re advisory, a situation that continues with the new bill.
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/inyourarea/neighbourhood/ says “a majority of voters of the neighbourhood” - I hope it is more tightly defined in the Bill.
Hi Phil, here’s the relevant bit of the bill: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmbills/161/11161.283-288.html#j878s See Schedule 9, 61E. 4a says that plan/order must be adopted by the LA if more than 50% of community vote in favour, so no longer merely advisory.
thanks Louis, I did find it eventually.
So planning permission without the planners, providing ” more than half of those voting ” vote in favour. Interesting times, where 2 people can in theory vote through a development order.
Still waiting to hear about free mobile phone calls.
O2 apparently started trailing LTE 4G on 800Mhz in Carlisle about a year ago. Never heard anything more about that. LTE Advanced is what we actually need deployed in this country -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced
3G missed a trick in that it wasn’t backwards compatible with 2G so we now have two sets of cell sites everywhere. LTE 4G is backwards compatible on most carrier kit so it just requires a swap out and possibly improved backhaul to provide coverage for all the required technologies on the same spectrum.
O2 and Vodafone are actually excluded from this 800Mhz auction as they already have low frequency spectrum at 900Mhz where as T-Mobile / Orange have had to put up with 1800Mhz all these years. Three uses 2100Mhz on its 3G only network with all the other carriers having 3G on this spectrum.
Mobile Broadband Networks Limited is a company formed to manage the network sharing agreement of T-Mobile and Three. Orange joined the mix when Orange and T-Mobile merged to become Everything Everywhere. This means that after a bit of work, over 50% of users will be running on the same network. Is it not time for the gov to encourage O2 and Voda to join the mix and create one network that gives complete LAND coverage and not just population coverage which doesn’t help us when driving through very remote areas with our ear pieces in!
Craig, O2 and Vodafone are not excluded from the auction. On the contrary, Ofcom is desperate for all MNOs to bid. The 2G re-farm is a separate issue. Also, the backward compatibility of 4G - and hence low cost of deployment - is one of Ofcom’s reasons for setting the coverage floor at just 95%!
Are you sure, Louis? That was the initial findings of the DB report and appeared to of been adopted early last year when the auction first got talked about…
How on earth would it be fair if anybody but T-Mobile, Three and Orange didn’t get the same amount of spectrum O2 have at 900Mhz as they will, one would assume, get to use that for 4G…
There can be no exclusions - otherwise go directly to High Court and do not pass Go - but OFCOM have in their book proposed some limits on total spectrum ownership.
Fair is such a subjective word, don’t you find.
Ah, right. Total low frequency spectrum ownership may exclude Voda / O2 automatically, then, as they would have to give up some of their 900Mhz just to bid on the 800Mhz. Just about the same as being blocked, really, then…
you need to read the OFCOM book Craig, there are 3 proposed options for sub 1 GHz total holding caps - 1) 2 * 22.5 MHz, 2) 2 * 27.5 MHz (OFCOM preference) 3) no cap.
O2 and Voda have 2 * 17.4 MHz at 900 MHz so could each get 2 * 10 MHz under OFCOM’s preferred option. Bear in mind OFCOM want to see 4 credible national wholesalers in the 800 MHz spectrum !
There’s also a total spectrum cap of 2 * 105 MHz (OFCOM prefer), 2 * 120 MHz and no cap.
Being blocked is completely different to ownership restrictions, with a cap you can participate in the auction and drive the price up. You can also pick and choose what to do when it’s all sorted and you know what your competitors won.
Gotcha. I haven’t read all the documents OFCOM have put out on this recently.
Interesting they WANT 4 national operators in it. This is why 100% land coverage isn’t possible because they insist multiple networks should exist. Gift the lot FOC in exchange for 100% land coverage via one network and we would solve a lot of problems. Some of this is what Rory was hinting at in the commons a few weeks back…