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UK not-spot deal: When we said '2017’, we meant 1 DAY BEFORE 2018

What’s a year of lost calls between friends?

Opinion While the initial “not-spots” deal looked vague and woolly, the latest communication from Ofcom shows that there is at least some engineering nous in the background.

The crux of the matter is that the operators have now been given some actual numbers (PDF) to define coverage:

The Licensee shall, by no later than 31 December 2017, provide and thereafter maintain an electronic communications network that is capable of providing mobile voice telecommunications services to an area covering at least 90 per cent of the geographic landmass of the United Kingdom at at least one of the minimum signal strengths set out in Table 1 of this condition.

For the avoidance of doubt the Licensee shall be permitted to meet the obligation set out in this condition using any frequencies and technologies available to the Licensee.

Table 1: Technology and Band Minimum Signal Threshold

  • Technology and Band Minimum Signal Threshold
  • GSM900 -93 dBm
  • GSM1800 -93 dBm
  • UMTS2100 -103 dBm
  • LTE800 -115 dBm

These power levels are very low. In the Ofcom Infrastructure report published at the end of last year, the government body used a threshold level of -86dBm for outdoor and in-car, -76dBm for indoor. Since 3dBm is a doubling of power, the new requirements are very much less onerous than the previous levels of measurement.

Further, if you look at the infrastructure report it shows 2G coverage from O2 at 78 per cent, Vodafone at 82 per cent and EE at 78 per cent of geographic. Getting up to 90 per cent at lower signal levels isn't really a tall order.

Dr Paul Carter from our friends at GWS told us "my guess is that the operators are not too far away from that already, and they have three years to hit the target".

Carter has reservations about quality of service – for example, you might have a signal but still be unable to make a call – and like many people, he questions the lack of requirements to hit any data rates. Indeed, Carter says the wording is such that the operators could achieve the targets with any technology and at any frequency of their choosing. "By allowing the operators to choose, does this not mean the operators will invest in getting their 2G to hit the target where they are nearly there and dilute their spending on 4G, [although] 4G is the future?"

As ever, there's some manoeuvring, as the original announcement clearly said “by 2017”, and this one says "31 December 2017".

The December 2017 deadline corresponds with that already agreed by the operators (PDF) for population coverage.

A Ministry of Fun spokesperson said that "by 2017" had always meant "by the [very] end of 2017", apparently.

While the population figure for the 800MHz spectrum has an indoor obligation, there is no mention in the agreement of indoor or outdoor coverage, and an Ofcom spokesperson confirmed to us that this will be outdoor. It leaves unresolved the thorny issue of signals within trains.

An announcement from the Ministry of Fun (sometimes known as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) on Monday stuck with the “by 2017” thing and said the “Secretary of State expects the operators to meet an interim goal in 2016”. It doesn’t say what the goal is.

With regard to the the changes to the Electronic Communications Code that the ministry had promised the mobile operators would be changed, they failed to make it through Parliament, and were dropped from the recent infrastructure bill (in which they were hidden behind lots of stuff on roads and fracking) after the opposition Labour Party outed the clauses.

A ministry spokesperson told us that the “DCMS intends to launch a consultation before the end of the current Parliament. There is broad cross-party support ... which will enable code reform to be taken forward at the earliest opportunity in the next Parliament."

Even if the bill had gone through, it would only have addressed a minor portion of the operators' gripes. One of the reasons for that failure was Labour’s opposition to the whole deal: which included an acceptance that the near tripling of licence fees for 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum should be looked at for a third time.

The fees have risen from £65m to a proposed £309m, and then a proposed £246.8m a year. While no figure has yet been set, Her Majesty’s Opposition is doing what it does best and opposing a change to the change.

With all these parameters still moving, it’s good that something as concrete as signal strengths – which is no trivial matter – has been agreed upon.

All it needs now is a means to measure the 90 per cent coverage, which will require more than the occasional drive-round survey.

The prime method for "measuring" is asking the operators. A board member of each licence holder will have to promise Ofcom that they have hit the target at the end of 2017 and back it up with radio planning data from the network.

Ofcom has said that it will do its own measurements, but recent history of such measurements has been a bit hit or miss ®.

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