Ofcom makes bid to meet mobile broadband demand
The popularity of smartphones and tablets have increased dramatically in the past few years. The UK is a region in which the appetite for the technology is on the up, and according to Ofcom, high mobile data usage rates could grow 800-fold between 2012 and 2030, meaning that the mobile networks will be under considerable […]
The popularity of smartphones and tablets have increased dramatically in the past few years. The UK is a region in which the appetite for the technology is on the up, and according to Ofcom, high mobile data usage rates could grow 800-fold between 2012 and 2030, meaning that the mobile networks will be under considerable strain in the future.
To keep up with the developments, Ofcom is taking urgent action to allow for a much greater spectrum and has urged the industry to assist it in its quest. Launched in March, Ofcom is the brain behind a consultation exercise that will run until June this year. The aim of the initiative is to devise a long-term strategy to meet the ever-growing mobile broadband demand, and the measures established will affect use of radio spectrum after the year of 2018.
A way to ease the burden of existing networks, meanwhile, would occur if operators offloaded some data requests to wifi and so-called femtocells- minute base stations.
Another alternative would be to turn to newer mobile technologies such as LTE, an innovation known to make more efficient use of radio spectrum. While these solutions will certainly help, more drastic measures may be necessary, and Ofcom is toying with the idea of freeing a chunk of the UHF spectrum, the 700MHz band, currently used for digital TV signals.
