Tag: Ofcom

Ofcom Auction Results for 4G & 5G Mobile Spectrum

April 8, 2018 Ofcom No Comments

Ofcom has announced the outcome of the principal stage of its auction to release airwaves for 4G mobile and future 5G services.

The regulator has been running an auction of airwaves – or spectrum – in two frequency bands: 2.3 GHz, which is usable by current mobile phones and will help improve 4G capacity for today’s mobile users; and 3.4 GHz, which is one of the spectrum bands earmarked for 5G, the next generation of mobile technology.

With the principal stage of the auction now complete, Ofcom has today confirmed the amount of spectrum won in the principal stage by each company.

  • Airspan Spectrum Holdings Limited has not won spectrum in either band.EE
  • Limited has won 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £302,592,000.Hutchison 3G UK
  • Limited has won 20 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £151,296,000.Telefónica UK Limited has won all 40 MHz of 2.3 GHz spectrum available, at a cost of £
  • 205,896,000; and 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £317,720,000.Vodafone
  • Limited has won 50 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £378,240,000.

The total value of the principal stage is £1,355,744,000, with all money raised from the auction to be paid to HM Treasury.

What happens next?

In the second half of 2019, Ofcom will also auction spectrum in the 700MHz band, but this will come with a caveat: the need to improve 4G coverage first.

“To ensure widespread improvements in mobile coverage across the UK, we are proposing to attach coverage obligations to some of the licences we will award for the 700 MHz band,” Ofcom said.

“These obligations will require winning bidders to roll out improved mobile coverage in rural areas and the nations.”

Sources: BBC & CommsBusiness

 

Steve Halama

10Mbps Internet speeds for everyone by 2020

April 1, 2018 Industry News, Ofcom No Comments

The UK Government is introducing a Universal Service Obligation (USO) for broadband as part of its commitment in the UK Digital Strategy (March 2017) to ensure that the UK has world-class digital connectivity and inclusion.

The new USO is a UK-wide measure, intended to fill the gap left by the UK Government’s existing broadband roll-out programs, to deliver broadband connections to the hardest to reach premises in the UK. The USO is intended to provide a legal right to request a broadband connection of at least 10 Mbps download speed, up to a reasonable cost threshold.

The Digital Economy Act 2017 gives the UK Government the power to implement the USO via secondary legislation. The Act also allows for the Government to review the USO and to increase the minimum speed. There was broad cross-party and consumer support for the introduction of a statutory USO for broadband in general, but there were mixed views from industry stakeholders as to how universal access to broadband should be delivered.

How will it be implemented?

The UK Government was considering two options for the delivery of its aim for universal access to broadband connections with at least 10 Mbps download speeds by 2020:

  • a regulatory approach implemented by secondary legislation; and
  • a proposal by BT to deliver the service voluntarily.

The Government announced in December 2017 that it would adopt the regulatory approach. Under this framework, the USO will be demand-led. This means that consumers will have a right to request a connection. A universal service provider (most likely BT) will be obliged to build all reasonable requests up to cost threshold (£3400 proposed). The USO is expected to be funded by a cost-sharing industry fund.

Ofcom’s wholesale superfast broadband prices slashed

February 24, 2018 Ofcom, Telecommunications No Comments

Ofcom has slashed the price BT’s Openreach can charge operators for superfast broadband, in a package of measures BT said will hit its bottom line to the tune of £120m next year.

The proposals are part of broader measures intended to boost broadband investment in the UK, including plans to increase current full-fibre penetration in the country from 3 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020.

Ofcom is also forcing Openreach to introduce stiffer quality of service standards (installations and repairs), and open up its cable ducts to rival ISPs.

In any case, it chose not to control the costs of Openreach’s speediest discount superfast broadband items to boost operators to assemble full-fiber systems.

Under the plans, BT must make its telegraph poles and underground passages open to match suppliers, making it speedier and less demanding for them to construct their own full-fiber arranges straightforwardly to family units around the UK,” it said. It said that could split the forthright expenses of laying fiber links to £250 per home.

To keep BT from smothering new venture by rivals as system rivalry develops, the previous state imposing business model won’t be permitted to make focused on discount value diminishments in regions where rivals are beginning to fabricate new systems, it said.

While Ofcom needs to enhance Blighty’s woeful full-fiber entrance, it is likewise quick to guarantee reasonable access to superfast broadband, or fiber-to-the-bureau. In that capacity it will cut the discount value that Openreach can charge telecoms organizations for its essential superfast broadband with paces of up to 40 Mbps, and transfer paces of 10Mbps.

The present rental charge is £88.80 every year, which will be decreased to £59.04 by 2020/21.

Ofcom additionally needs to guarantee that Openreach puts in new lines on its current system, and fixes shortcomings, all the more rapidly meanwhile.

Openreach will be required to: finish no less than 88 for every penny of blame repairs inside two days, up from 80 for each penny today; total 97 for each penny of repairs inside seven days; and introduce 95 for every penny of associations on the date concurred with the telecoms supplier, up from 90 for every penny today.

These new prerequisites must be met by 2020/21.

Jonathan Oxley, Ofcom’s opposition gather executive, stated: “Full fiber meets the nation’s future broadband needs, as interest for information takes off.

“Ultrafast rates will enable individuals to download whole movies, or organizations to share enormous records, in a flash. Full fiber will likewise support energizing innovation like remote human services diagnostics, 5G versatile and associated gadgets.

“The apportions we’ve set today will bolster the developing number of organizations who have officially declared plans to fabricate full-fiber systems, and open the route for much more yearning speculation around the UK.”

Original Source: The Register

Openreach pegs full fibre overhaul anywhere between £3bn and £6bn

August 25, 2017 Broadband, Leased Lines, Network, Ofcom No Comments

Openreach has assessed it should fork out amongst £3bn and £6bn to put resources into 10 million fiber-to-the-introduce associations in the UK by 2025.

The broadband division of BT, which legitimately isolated from the previous state syndication not long ago, put its meeting out secretly to its 580 web access suppliers a month ago, which will shut in September.

In it, Openreach proposes correspondence suppliers focus on moving “the whole Openreach client base” to fiber in the ranges distinguished, which would mean clients paying an extra £7 every month.

Deciding on a “cutover” model would cost not as much as building the system out in a piecemeal manner. On the off chance that arrangement and association costs were recuperated just from clients taking up fiber, purchasers would need to pay a £25 additional per head, it said.

Openreach’s present rental charge for the conveyance of superfast broadband and a copper line extends between £14-£17 every month, said the report.

BT has been blamed for stalling on fiber venture, rather “sweating” its copper resources. It already evaluated a full national fiber take off would cost £28bn.

Both the legislature and controller Ofcom have been quick to push for more prominent fiber venture, with current FTTP entrance falling behind numerous different nations at only 2 for every penny.

Boss executive Clive Selley has said that by utilizing new strategies the organization has as of late split the cost of conveying “full-fiber” foundation. He said Openreach could achieve a more “driven” focus than the 2 million fiber associations it has effectively dedicated to by 2020.

“However, building a substantial scale arrange is as yet a tremendous business, specialized and calculated test that will require genuine resourcefulness, adaptability and coordination crosswise over government and industry,” he included.

Be that as it may, some of BT’s system rivals were not persuaded by the approach. Check Collins, chief of procedure at CityFibre, stated: “Regardless of the possibility that they move everyone over, they should build the cost by 50 for each penny. Also, they are stating on the off chance that they don’t do constrained relocation, we’ll have to charge much more.

“In any case, it looks ugly for CPs to focus on Openreach’s approach when conceivably better options are rising.”

He said the model could go about as an obstacle for comms suppliers to fabricate their own particular system utilizing Openreach’s conduits and posts. Ofcom as of late proposed to slice the rental expenses for littler suppliers looking to utilize Openreach’s foundation.

Collins asserted that by Openreach’s own examination, if elective administrators assemble contending FTTP systems, conceivably utilizing Openreach conduits and posts, the financial case for Openreach to convey FTTP in a similar range “is debilitated significantly”.

He said BT was moving the correct way. “Contenders are doing our bit to give foundation over the UK, however our consolidated endeavors won’t do it all. So it’s sensible Openreach finds the correct business model and its FTTP rollout is added substance to alternate arrangements in progress instead of copying them. Notwithstanding, it’s critical CPs don’t get bolted into Openreach.”

Matthew Hare, boss executive of little system supplier Gigaclear, lauded the conference, saying it flagged “the start of the end” for copper systems. “Successfully what they are stating is, we are prepared to begin killing the copper organize.”

An Openreach representative stated: “Sending full fiber at scale will cost billions of pounds – we are as of now during the time spent investigating what we can do by and large crosswise over industry, government and controllers to limit those expenses.

“The correct costs included would rely upon an assortment of variables – which is the thing that the interview is investigating.

“We likewise need to consider with CPs what the level of interest for full fiber is, and what the most ideal path is for us to recuperate the expenses of building any system. This procedure is progressing and we will share more detail at the appropriate time.”

Jocks’ USO block shock: BT’s 10Mbps proposals risk ‘rural monopoly’

August 25, 2017 Broadband, Business, Leased Lines, Ofcom No Comments

Scottish ministers fear ‘hugely negative outcome’

 

Recommendations by BT to fork out £600m to give omnipresent velocities of 10Mbps could harm rivalry by settling in its restraining infrastructure position, the Scottish government has cautioned.

BT made the offer to give the Universal Service Obligation by 2022 a month ago, which would render the administration’s intends to give clients a lawful appropriate to 10Mbps excess.

In any case, Scotland’s Rural Economy Secretary, Fergus Ewing, said the recommendations chance undermining rivalry by “obviously reasoning that it won’t be financially suitable for any supplier other than BT to convey in white ranges”.

“What has risen therefore hazards digging in, expanding, BT’s restraining infrastructure position in country regions,” he said in a letter to Culture Secretary Karen Bradley.

“That would be a gigantically negative result and one that would serve to undermine and baffle the Scottish government’s advanced aspirations.”

Calum Kerr, previous SNP MP who has extensive experience with telecoms, stated: “The USO as of now misses the mark as far as speed, and dangers guaranteeing the advanced separation turns into an abyss, as opposed to being shut.

“I’ve had a worry from the begin that a USO could be excessively prohibitive a vehicle It’s administration attempting to tick a case to state it’s finished something for country.”

Kerr had beforehand approached the UK government to present a voucher conspire for the USO, as a methods for all the more successfully boosting country broadband speeds and moving the imposing business model far from BT.

Interestingly, previous computerized serve Ed Vaizey has said BT’s Openreach is the web supplier best put to convey the administration’s arrangement for a USO.

As per Ofcom, there are 1.4 million families in the UK that don’t get speeds over 10Mbps.

Karen Bradley had said the administration “warmly respects” BT’s offer and will now take a gander at whether this or an administrative approach works better for homes and organizations.

“Whichever of the two methodologies we run with at last, the main impetus behind our basic leadership will be ensuring we get the best arrangement for purchasers.”

Original Source: The Register