Mandelson holds spectrum meeting with UK mobile operators

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Peter Mandelson is holding a meeting this morning with the UK’s five mobile providers to discuss the refarming of spectrum in order to reach broadband targets for 2012.

Although Mandelson’s spokespeople from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills could not confirm the meeting, a spokesperson from Vodafone told IT PRO that its chief executive was attending.

Measures laid out in the Digital Britain report, released earlier this year, said that in order to get the promised 2Mbps broadband out to everyone in the UK, the 900Mhz spectrum must be utilised for rural areas.

The problem, however, is this is owned by Vodafone and O2, who are reluctant to share it with other providers.

The aim of the meeting is to come to an agreement for the spectrum's use, which would in turn kick-start the implementation of the Digital Britain report’s proposals.

The providers initially met in February but no agreement was reached at that time.

Ofcom later threatened that the government would enforce a new sharing deal if they could not come up with an answer themselves.

Government advisor Kip Meek reported on the subject in May, saying the two operators would have the spectrum taken away from them entirely if they didn’t agree to share, but still nothing has been implemented.

IT PRO contacted Orange, O2 and T-Mobile to confirm the meeting and who was attending on their behalf but they had not responded to our request for comment at the time of publication.

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