By: MarkJ - 29 December, 2009 (9:37 AM) - Score: 8601 - Mobile Broadband

BT has cast a shadow over the government’s Digital Britain commitment, which aims to make a minimum broadband speed of 2Mbps available to everybody in the UK by 2012. The operator is threatening legal action if proposals by Kip Meek – the Independent Spectrum Broker (ISB), which would involve extending current 3G Mobile Broadband licenses indefinitely, are carried forward.


The proposal is part of a wider plan that would entice UK mobile operators into sharing their spectrum and opening it up for wider use by Mobile Broadband services, thus extending the services coverage to more remote and rural locations. By contrast BT has only ever dipped its toes into the fixed wireless realm, instead sticking more to local Wi-Fi Hotspots.

BT has an understandable self-interest here, as any commercial company would, though their voice is unlikely to change the tide. Ironically it comes at a time when BT is trying to lobby for money from the government’s proposed 50p phone line tax and reduce its pension deficit by raising the price of access to its phone lines. Not the best time to be attacking the government then.

UPDATE - 4:24pm

BT has been in touch to clarify that it would be very willing to play a part in addressing the issue of the 2Mbps USC, so long as there is public funding available to bridge the gap with a commercial case.

However it firmly believes that the proposed spectrum caps risk a carving up of new and existing spectrum between the existing mobile operators with no real provision for new entry.


BT should of course also be worried about the potential for future LTE based Mobile Broadband services to offer a faster and more accessible service than it is currently able to provide in many remote and rural communities. Indeed it makes a fair point about mobile operators being allowed to benefit while established fixed line alternatives would receive precious little support.

Presently BT's only real solution to reach these remote locations with a reliable 2Mbps service is the expensive Broadband Enabling Technology (BET) rout, which requires two 1Mbps telephone lines to be bonded. It would be interesting to see whether BT can produce a national fixed wireless alternative to the ISB proposals, though at present we have not seen a clear plan for hitting the 2012 target with this.

Still BT should not be too concerned; mobile operators have serious capacity constraints to deal with, due in no small part to the low pricing of Mobile Broadband services, which has failed to bring in enough revenue to support necessary improvements. This issue is likely to persist for some time to come.