Locations
What are the highlights?
Among the wide ranging highlights of the new Strategy are:
- Ensuring good connectivity for all, building out 4G coverage across the remaining areas of the UK, and expanding 5G coverage;
- Aiming for nationwide coverage of standalone 5G to all populated areas by 2030;
- Strengthening the investment climate, including by being open to market consolidation (subject, of course, to review by the Competition and Markets Athority);
- Reducing barriers to investment and innovation;
- Ensuring net neutrality rules are fit for purpose;
- Promoting more efficient use of spectrum;
- Ensuring spectrum governance arrangements are working effectively;
- Supporting secure new entrant providers and scale ups for services such as neutral host operations and private network provision;
- Providing up to £40 million for UK regions and local authorities to create "5G Innovation Regions" and promote 5G and other advanced wireless technologies;
- Ensuring that digital connectivity requirements for future users of infrastructure are at the heart of major infrastructure projects;
- Working with Ofcom to continue to improve access to spectrum;
- Investing up to £100 million in future telecoms research and development, especially for 6G;
- Setting out a UK roadmap for 6G.
All of which gives operators much to digest.
Some key questions
In evaluating the Strategy, spectrum businesses will be asking themselves some important questions, such as:
- How will the UK government and Ofcom set the balance in the congested and contested areas of spectrum targeted by both terrestrial and space operators? This will be a key factor in delivering on the Strategy's aim of strengthening the climate for innovation and investment in the wireless sectors.
- Will dynamic access to spectrum, as the key "real estate", and the potential for freeing up spectrum no longer used by government, deliver valuable additional spectrum for commercial users, both mobile and satellite operators? Many operators will be keen to see how this unlocks access to additional spectrum for all players (large and small), and supports innovative services.
- In aiming for refarming of spectrum when not used efficiently, will this policy prompt positive market behaviours and more opportunities for spectrum trading? If, instead, it leads some operators to disguise and preserve poor spectrum use, in order to avoid refarming, the opportunity may slip away.
- Will we see real convergence across terrestrial and satellite channels, as part of the delivery of good connectivity for all? Alongside the target of nationwide coverage of standalone 5G for all populated areas by 2030, the Strategy highlights an increased role for satellites in delivering high capacity broadband to rural areas, building on the Alpha Trials for low latency LEO connectivity.
- How far will the move into direct-to-device services alter the balance between satellite and mobile, such as stimulating new models of collaboration? As the combination of space and terrestrial applications becomes increasingly valuable, operators are likely to seek innovative ways of working together, reflecting the new dynamics of spectrum businesses.
- The Strategy acknowledges the value of spectrum in delivering Net Zero, both in energy networks and in sensing for climate change monitoring. Among other innovative uses of spectrum, will other valuable energy applications such as Space Based Solar Power (recognised in the Ofcom Space Spectrum Strategy in 2022) be promoted equally?
- How far will the commendable ambition for government users of wireless to be anchor tenants deliver a real boost to the satcom and mobile arenas, and promote effective next generation communications infrastructure? The Strategy sets the objective of working across Whitehall departments to drive innovation in public services through public adoption of 5G and other advanced wireless connectivity. The acid test will be how this translates into delivery, especially at a time of significant pressures on public finances.
- In focussing on non-geostationary satellite (NGSO) constellations, the Strategy confirms the policy of licensing multiple NGSO constellations in the UK. Building on the licences already granted to operators such as OneWeb, Starlink and Lightspeed, how far will the conditions applicable to new NGSO licences enable or constrain evolution of this new market?
- How far will the regulatory environment, vital in opening up the new spectrum opportunities, be effective in supporting these ambitions for established operators and new entrants, and keep the UK at the forefront of the evolution of the international framework under the ITU?
Navigating these waters will be a major focus for all spectrum businesses in the months and years to come.