The 4G auctions in the UK have a long history of benefiting no one apart from the lawyers, and even though Ofcom granted permission to EE for it to launch its 4G 1800 MHz service today, the launch is purely a pre-registration exercise with no services available to order.
The Finanical Times carries details of an agreement between the mobile providers, apparently brokered by the previous Culture Secretary, where no legal action against Everything Everywhere will take place for a month while talks are held, and in return EE will not actually deliver a service for a few more weeks.
The 4G auction if there had been no bickering and delays could have originally taken place as far back as 2008, but now looks set to not happen until 2013. A survey of our visitors revealed 65% supported Everything Everywhere being allowed to launch in September, 21% gave a clear no, and the remaining 14% said no. While the opposition to Everything Everywhere rolling out early will be worried about losing customers, only 30% suggested they would change mobile providers to utilise 4G, given that we now know that initially there will be no PAYG tariffs in the early roll-out the actual number is likely to be a lot lower.
staff member)
9 months ago
So who is responsible for delaying the auction from 2008?