A UN telecoms meeting decided to give mobile service providers access to bandwidth currently reserved for terrestrial television broadcasts, offering the promise of high-speed Internet access on-the-move anywhere in the world by 2015.

The decision will give manufacturers of wireless equipment greater confidence to develop better and cheaper devices. Telecom service providers show have lower rollout costs for rolling out new networks. Experts believe that networks can be rolled out for less than half of the cost of using higher frequencies, such as the 2.3 to 2.4 gigahertz range that is available in some regions.

Countries agreed to the rule after a month of negotiations that boiled down to a battle between old and new media, broadcasters against telecoms companies, for control of a prime stretch of radio spectrum, the report said.

Consumers in the United States are to gain access to at least some of the spectrum in question by 2009, but it will take an additional six years before those in Europe, Africa, China, Russia and much of the Middle East will have the same access. 

A U.S. government auction scheduled for February is expected to fetch up to $15 billion from the sale of bandwidth in the 698 megahertz to 806 megahertz range. This is the same auction where Google was getting so much press.

The same frequencies will be available for mobile services throughout the Americas, India, Japan, Korea and a number of other Asian countries, while the rest of the world will initially use only the 790 megahertz to 862 megahertz range.

The great thing for global IT organizations is that it should enable greater use of the same devices across the globe, improving the quality, cost and availability of service.

Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog