While America wrapped up their spectrum auction nearly 2 years ago, with Verizon being the winner and announcing that they’ll have an LTE network up and running by the end of this year, many countries on this side of the pond are still flipping through their agendas, trying to find a good date to get every operator inside one room and start selling that precious invisible gold.
The UK is due to have an auction during the first half of 2011, but O2 and Vodafone are trying their best to stop that. They’re claiming that the recent T-Mobile and Orange merger complicates things. The joint venture have too much spectrum and need to give some up. The government agrees, so they said T-Mobile/Orange has to give up 25% of their spectrum. Who gets those airwaves then? Another auction? What happens to the guy who loses that auction?
These questions, and more, are going to cause a headache for lawmakers, and more importantly, delay the speed at which LTE gets rolled out in the UK. Considering the fact that there aren’t going to be any LTE mobile phones until 2012, this isn’t such a bad thing.
[Via: Computer Weekly]