The European economy would receive a financial boost of at least €95 billion over the next 20 years if one quarter of the UHF band were instead allocated for mobile broadband services, according to an 'independent' study commissioned by Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone. The report states that the financial benefit would come from the major operators being able to offer wireless broadband services such as email and fast web surfing on mobile phones. Vodafone director of public policy, Richard Feasey, said: "This spectrum is some of the most important to be released in the last 20 years and will be critical to Vodafone's plans to deploy mobile broadband services in Europe on a truly universal basis."
However, this is unlikely to be accepted by the TV broadcasters, who themselves want to hold on to the analogue spectrum for new services such as HDTV.
For more on this story:
- read 3G.co.uk and The Inquirer
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