The spectrum allocation controversy has taken a new twist. Last May, T-Mobile and O2 had jointly brought litigation against Ofcom to delay the auction of the 2.6GHz spectrum. Now, T-Mobile has dropped out of the battle without giving any reason for the same.

The 2.6GHz spectrum is a coveted piece of broadcast spectrum, which has been earmarked for 4G services including LTE (click here for more explanation on mobile broadband). Last year when Ofcom announced that the spectrum would be auctioned off, it created some concerns among the mobile industry. The mobile operators argued that it is not easy to decide on the value of such a spectrum when other spectrums such as the 900Mhz one still have outstanding issues.

O2 and T-Mobile had started litigation against Ofcom with the main aim to delay the auction until decisions were made on the spectrum allocation of other ranges. The two companies have succeeded so far as the auction process is still stalled. The delay has also prevented LTE’s rival technology WiMax from being launched on the 2.6GHz spectrum and the mobile providers who are in favour of LTE will be quite happy with this consequence.

Ofcom has meanwhile refused to change its latest stance, which is that the reallocation of the 900MHz spectrum has nothing to do with the 2.6GHz range being sold. It has also said that the auction is slated to go ahead later this year.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 6:45 am and is filed under Consumer World, Living With Telecommunication, Technology Parlor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.