Comments on: And now let us praise Gordon Brown

By: The Great Simpleton

The Great Simpleton — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:56:38 +0000

The rules for Oftel (now Ofcom) were changed after the auction to stop them making revenue the sole aim of licensing spectrum. Maybe India should consider why.

Furthermore, there may have been an argument for technology specific licenses for 2G, and in the early days of 3G, to drive economies of scale. But now that 4G technologies are available and soft radio technology means that mobiles can be easily configured for different technologies, India (and Ofcom with the 3G extension spectrum) should be encouraging innovation by selling technology neutral licenses.

@Gareth, what caused the problem was the cost meant that the mobile operators came under pressure to go with an immature technology. Hutchison Whampoa put so much pressure on 3 that they had at least three launches and the technology became a bit of a joke. It did increase the workforce as 3 sucked a huge amount of radio engineers and roll out specialists.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:59:56 +0000

The spectrum auctions caused a loss of momentum and jobs in the European telecoms industry.

By: diogenes

diogenes — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:10:10 +0000

“It’s not going to make any difference to hte price that companies charge anyway: they’ll still charge the maximum the market will bear. The auction of the spectrum creates tax revenues and thus other tax rates can be lower for whatever level of services is provided.”

That is correct…but it will still retard investment – why else is 3G take-up so low still in the UK after all these years…The auction basically taxed the operators to the point of collapse…the strange thing is why did those companies do it?

By: Tim Newman

Tim Newman — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:36:15 +0000

It wasn’t just the decision to auction the spectrum that was a success, it was the handling of the auction itself (although I think this was probably more luck than judgement). I think The Undercover Economist went into detail about how similar auctions in other parts of the world had been biffed up royally.

By: Roger Thornhill

Roger Thornhill — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:34:17 +0000

I would not call that even “Lefty”.

Lefties would want monopolies, State ownership of the companies, discounts to their constituencies to allow more vote buying and probably more.