The names of the nine applicants for the L-Band spectrum in the UK have now been made public – O2, and (an offshoot of) Qualcomm are in there, making us wonder not very much about what they might be planning…I’ll give you a clue….Broadcast Mobile TV!
For those of you not up on your radio frequencies:
L-Band fits between 1452 and 1492MHz, and Ofcom has decided to split the band into 16 small lots, each 1.7MHz wide , with one large block of 12.5MHz across in the upper band of 1479.5-1492 MHz.
Ofcom is not enforcing specific tech or apps for the frequencies, which is interesting, because there are a number of potential uses, reflected by the complete set of applicants – satellite, terrestrial digital radio services, mobile TV, and wireless broadband are all potential options.
Other applicants include Arqiva, WorldSpace, Adolphus, Arqiva, ePortal, MLL Telecom, the Joint Radio Company, and Vectone Network.
Qualcomm, O2, and Arqiva would most likely use the frequencies for mobile TV – but for Qualcomm particularly it could be a major boon, gibing it the possibility to get it’s MediaFLO Mobile TV tech deployed in a region that is both practically, and politically dominated by DVB-H.
As you might remember O2 and Arqiva were both involved in a DVb-H tiral in Oxford in 2006, and Arqiva has further reference trial also – quite apart from the fact it runs most of the UK’s broadcasting – so you could bet on some sub-letting of spectrum to other broadcasters!
Some of the other applicants have less clear intentions – Vectone is an MVNO is operations in the Nordics, whereas Worldspace for example operates several satellite that broadcast radio around the world – at any rate this is hotting up to be one very interesting auction!!
[Via: EETimes.com]