British regulator Ofcom has given a go-ahead to the country’s operators to begin re-farming their existing 2G spectrum for 3G use. According to the official note, the move was designed to help operators “increase mobile broadband speeds, deliver improved in-building coverage and widen mobile broadband coverage in rural areas.” Until now operators were only able to use “a limited amount” of spectrum for 3G, and from today “the airwaves used by mobile phone operators for 2G services, such as making phone calls and sending texts, will be available to provide 3G services, such as mobile internet browsing,” the regulator said.
It’s important to note that the spectrum re-farming policy has not been without controversy due to the nature of how spectrum has been awarded over the years to the UK operators. Everything Everywhere, which is the market-leader formed by the merger of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK, had at one stage objected to the proposed legislation as it does not hold 2G spectrum at 900MHz, which is now set to become a valuable 3G frequency. However, it has dropped its planned legal action against Ofcom only to ask that future LTE spectrum auctions include a cap on the amount of low frequency airwaves that a single operator can own…
[Via MobileBusinessBriefing]