Government to free up radio spectrum for mobile broadband

The UK government may be about to intervene in negotiations to free up a slice of the radio spectrum to boost future mobilebroadband provision.

Communications minister Lord Carter recently unveiled his Digital Britain report with the headline pledge to provide broadband over 2Mbps to every household by 2012.

Among proposed initiatives to achieve this aim, the government hopes mobile operators will utilise the 900MHz spectrum to provide a broadband service to areas where fixed networks presently struggle to reach.

However, O2 and Vodafone currently own the band and must first reach an agreement with the other major operators - T-Mobile, Orange and 3 - before freeing up the spectrum.

Back in February, Lord Carter tasked former Ofcom official Kip Meek to hold discussions with all of the operators.

The minister has since set an April 30th deadline for all parties to reach an agreement, but greater government involvement could soon follow as he has previously indicated an "imposed solution" to the spectrum issue could be considered.

Meanwhile, British Telecom recently unveiled the I-Plate device, which is claimed to boost consumer broadband speeds to help push the UK towards the 2Mbps pledge.