Government ready to impose mobile broadband spectrum cap

The government's Independent Spectrum Broker (ISB) has recommended that the quest for universal mobilebroadband requires a spectrum cap to be imposed on operators.

Representatives from the organisation have been negotiating with the five major mobile operators in the UK to find a way to share the spectrum to potentially boost the pledge to provide 2 Mbps broadband for all by 2012.

One of the major stumbling blocks has been about O2 and Vodafone freeing up the 2G 900 MHz spectrum they received in the 1980s, so that Orange, T-Mobile and 3 can utilise it to provide data services.

Under the ISB proposals, any service provider hoping to purchase new spectrum would have to sell some of the band they already own, which is hoped to free up the market.

Communications minister Stephen Carter said the ISB findings are part of efforts to find a "comprehensive approach" to provide future mobilebroadband services, which could "offer enormous benefits for the UK economy".

He added: "This report addresses complex and challenging issues and demands careful consideration and we will be setting out our response in the final Digital Britain report next month."

Part of future spectrum negotiations will focus on the 800MHz Digital Dividend, which is the old analogue television frequency soon to be switched off.