The UK's largest internet auction site, eBay, has submitted its own Mobile Manifesto to the government and called upon Ofcom to "proceed as quickly as possible" to get the new generation of 4G ( LTE ) based superfast Mobile Broadband services to market by the end of 2013.

Ofcom was recently forced to delay the forthcoming auction of related re-farmed radio spectrum (800MHz and 2.6GHz) from Q1-2012 to Q4-2012 (here), although the regulator still hopes that the first commercial services will surface in late 2013.

The process has been held up by legal complaints and commercial disputes between operators, which is despite repeated calls by senior government ministers for all sides to happily join hands and skip off into the sunset (here). Meanwhile eBay's study of 2,000 consumers found that 45% were dissatisfied with the speed at which they can download data on their mobile phone.

eBay claims in its new report that the UK's digital communications industry, including mobile operations from retailers, network providers and developers, is worth over £50 billion to the UK economy and directly employs 531,000 workers in the country.


Research conducted for eBay earlier this year by retail experts Verdict claimed that mobile shopping could deliver a £4.5bn boost to Britain’s economy by 2016 and a further £13bn by 2021 (here). The auction site, which has support from retailer Marks & Spencer's and mobile operator Three (3) UK, also revealed a raft of interesting survey results.

eBay Mobile Survey Highlights

* 73% of mobile users would spend more through their mobiles if retailers had optimised websites.

* 68% of consumers still have concerns about giving personal details over a mobile connection and put an equal onus on mobile operators to solve it.

* 53% used their mobile internet to browse and find a store location whilst abroad.

* 49% have compared product prices via their mobile connection.

* 36% have used mobile internet to buy a product.

* 63% say they are put off using the internet more overseas because of the cost of downloading data.

eBay's manifesto thus calls upon Ofcom to prioritise improvements to mobile internet coverage on transport routes, such as railways and roads, as over a third of consumers (36%) already shop on their mobiles whilst travelling; a number which could be boosted to benefit retailers with faster mobile internet and better coverage.