Lord Mandelson has asked for a meeting of the bosses of the five UK mobile networks (O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Three & Orange) in a meeting where he will try to “bang some heads together” to get the governments plan of accessible broadband for everyone in the UK by 2012 as described in the Digital Britain report.
The mobile operators play a part in this as they can offer mobile broadband to places of the UK where it is unfeasible to install a fixed line broadband connection.
However the problem lies with the 900MHz wireless spectrum which requires all the mobile networks to come to a deal over. Originally back in the 1980s, Vodafone and 02 who were the first mobile operators in the UK were granted the use of this but a deal over sharing it up needs to be done with the other mobile operators.
Once this is cleared up talk is likely to turn to the 800MHz spectrum that will become available in 2012 once the switch off from analogue to Digital TV takes place. The government will be selling off this which the mobile operators will all be very interested in as it will also be ideal for widespread rural mobile coverage.