Ofcom Announces UK Auction of Mobile TV Spectrum

Filed in archive Emerging Tech on April 3, 2006

ZDNet UK's Graeme Wearden reports today that UK regulator Ofcom will be auctioning off 40MHz of spectrum between 1452MHz and 1492MHz, appropriate for mobile TV, WiMAX and satellite digital radio, in the first quarter of 2007.

Several operators want to offer mobile TV in the UK, Wearden writes, including BT and O2. "BT's product, called Movio, is based on digital audio broadcasting (DAB) and is designed to work in the spectrum band between 1452MHz and 1492MHz," he writes. "Virgin Mobile has already agreed to offer BT's service to its customers, using existing DAB channels. O2 has chosen a technology called DVB-H, which it claims is more sophisticated than DAB-based rivals."

At C21 Media, Jonathan Webdale says the competition between operators will now increase as a result of the auction. "Both the DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) and DVB-H camps will now be pushing hard to get their hands on the new spectrum that is becoming available - in the first case to allow a broadening of channel capacity and in the second, to simply get a commercial service off the ground," he writes.