HTC One (M8)

The HTC One (M8) comes in a box resembling an Apple Mac Mini and sliding off the top reveals the phone in all its glory. It's a well made phone and feels very solid in construction with an aluminium body and big screen (the phone is bigger than an iPhone), coming in at 160g the weight matches the solidness of the chassis. It's also 9.3mm thick which feels right (and not clunky).

The screen is very bright (Gorilla Glass form Corning) and it uses Super LCD technology supporting 1080 x 1920 (HD) pixels with a wide viewing angle it's 5 inches from corner to diagonal corner, it's possible to watch a movie on this and really appreciate the vibrant colours.

The M8 also supports the latest generation of Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, the 801 with 4 cores (ARM) - though it's a 32bit CPU (Apple's new CPU is 64bit), though there's a lot of power and the phone doesn't feel underpowered in the slightest. The CPU also has on-board graphics, a DSP and support for the latest GPS technologies.

The battery is also 2600mAH which allows the phone to operate for a sensible amount of time before recharging (obviously dependant on application use, but it can last a full day on a full charge).

There's front and rear cameras and front facing HTC Boom speakers which don't sound too tinny.

The phone comes with Google's latest Android Operating System Kit Kat and some HTC application pre-bundled. HTC Blinkfeed is an app that manages all your social feeds (and email) in a single view, which is actually quite nice to use. there's also Sense TV which is a TV remote on steroids and works with both terrestrial TV channels and services like Sky and Virgin Media. There's also all the standard Google apps like Maps, Google Now and voice actions (like Apple's SIRI).

There's 8GB of internal memory which is enough to run quite a few apps, but there's also a MicroSD slot which can take a 128GB card which should support most people's app desires.

There's also NFC, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5 GHz) and DLNA allowing wireless streaming to another DLNA device such as a TV.

The cameras should also be mentioned as HTC has done some magic with the rear camera (well it's actually two), the primary camera is an HTC UltraPixel™ camera, BSI sensor, pixel size 2.0 um, sensor size 1/3”, f/2.0, 28mm lens, HTC ImageChip 2. 1080p Full HD video recording with HDR video and the secondary camera is used to capture depth information. This allows a picture to be taken and the depth of field changed (so the foreground or background can be brought into focus).

The front camera is more 'normal' with a 5MP, BSI sensor, wide angle lens with HDR capability, 1080p Full HD video recording. Gallery with UFocus™, Dimension Plus™, Seasons, Foregrounder, Image match.

The phone is really best of breed and it's one of the snappiest phones around, there's no lag and the screen really is fantastic.

O2 kindly lent the phone and it's on their O2 Refresh service which costs from £38 to £48 per month (with a zero upfront cost for the phone) or £13 to £28 per month paying the full £609.99 for the phone.

Ofcom makes more spectrum license exempt

Ofcom, the Super regulator that looks after radio spectrum amongst other things, has made more spectrum license exempt.

In the UK there is no such thing as unlicensed spectrum and all devices (whether they broadcast or receive radio transmissions) must be covered by a license as per the Wireless Telegraphy Act. Ofcom can issue a Standard Instrument (really an Act of Parliament) to cover certain frequency bands and uses making that spectrum license exempt, which means if the equipment is used as per the SI, it doesn't need a specific license.

Ofcom has made new spectrum available for SRDs (short range devices) such as range finding equipment for cars. There is now 5MHz of spectrum available between 10.575 to 10.6 GHz which will add to the existing range of 10.577 to 10.597 GHz and this came into force on 26th June 2013.

The existing band 10.675 to 10.699 GHz can continue to be used by existing systems, but it will be closed for new systems on 30 December 2014 giving manufacturers 18 months to switch to the new band.

Mobile terminal handsets using WiMAX or LTE in the 800MHz, 2011MHz and 2.6GHz bands will be license exempt (when connected to a licensed mobile network i.e. BT, EE, 3UK, O2 or Vodafone).

Various satellite terminals will also be license exempt in the 1518 to 1525 MHz, 1525 MHz to 1559 MHz, 1626.5 MHz to 1660.5 MHz and 1670 to 1675 MHz bands.

Everything you wanted to know about (upgrading to) BB10, but were afraid to ask

A few weeks ago I received a Blackberry Q10 that I had won in an EE competition. It was sent directly to me from Blackberry in the UK. Unfortunately it was locked to EE and I am an O2 customer, but with help from Blackberry an unlock code arrived in Email the same day.

The Q10 was sent out with various bits configured for EE, which I queried and was told "once the new SIM works, the device gets the settings from the network", so again all well and good.

Next install Blackberry Link which is the new desktop software from Blackberry, again all well and good, except though it can now sync photos/music/documents/etc with the desktop (a Mac user) it no longer (compared to Blackberry Desktop Software for Mac) syncs Calendars and Contacts. The new BB10 devices (Z10 and Q10) are completely device centric and all email/calendar and contacts synchronisation is done by the mobile device itself.

I plugged in the old Blackberry Bold 9900 (which Blackberry Link recognised as a OS7 device) and it asked if it would like to transfer the databases, to which I confirmed.

All seemed well, except you have to set-up all the old email accounts/etc on the new device before it actually works and it seems not all of them were working (GMail specifically, luckily the set-up of a BB10 device can be done using WiFi so it doesn't need a SIM in the device to actually set it up).

The email accounts were all working, try the transfer again and all went well.
Then (after reducing the SIM from a normal size to a uSIM using a SIM cutting tool) put the old (u)SIM into the Q10 and bang, everything works (well at that point the phone needed unlocking, but that was very simple and just required entering the unlock code - though not in the way Blackberry had stated, go into settings, then security, SIM and then you are asked to unlock).

On the Mac iCloud is the default system for contacts and calendar, so on the Q10 just add a new Email account (i.e. iCloud account). That's where problems started. There is a known problem using iCloud for newer versions of BB10. The Email account is set-up fine as is contact sync, however it fails to set-up the calendar sync (with a credential issue).

It's also possibly to directly add a Caldav account in the advanced Email set-up, again the forums were awash with suggestions but it should be possible to just add caldav.icloud.com as the calendaring service, but again this failed with a credential issue and would not complete.

Search the forums and lo and behold there's a Blackberry knowledge base entry which states "there's a known issue with Apple's caldav services" (Apple uses CALdav for calendar synchronisation, it also used to work on older versions of BB10, the phone upgraded itself to v10.1.0.273 via the WiFi, some earlier version of 10.0 used to work). The forums also stated that after speaking to Blackberry users had been told to report the fault to their carrier who could then escalate to Blackberry, the more users/carriers reporting the fault would increase the escalation.

So decide to phone O2 and report the fault and managed to get through to the Blackberry specialist team, explaining that I had upgraded from a Blackberry Bold 9900 and was now using a Q10 and wasn't able to sync calendars. They explained they would look at the problem and get back to me, which they did. Unfortunately they wouldn't escalate the problem as it was a known issue by Blackberry and thus couldn't escalate. I tried to explain that even Blackberry themselves were telling users to go through their carriers to report the fault, but they were adamant that they wouldn't be able to report the fault as it was already "on the system".

So no calendar synchronisation, but the phone seemed to be working well apart from that, email coming through, twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn all seemed to be doing the right thing.

There are some immediate quirks though: -

• On the old Blackberry you can delete an Email on the device or delete it on the device and the Email server. this is no longer possible and deleting an email deletes it completely. This isn't disastrous it just means you get a lot of emails on the device, the Email icon turns grey if read, but it's still there. After 90 days it is possible to to set a shorter time) older emails will disappear.
• The old twitter client used to support multiple accounts, the new one in BB10 only supports a single twitter account, this is a real pain. Direct Messages (DMs) and mentions (@) appear in the hub, which is fine, but the actual twitter client only supports a single twitter account itself. Would be happy if the Hub just supported DMs and mentions from the active twitter account, but the actual twitter client should support multiple accounts and the user can select which twitter account to be active.

So only a single twitter account, no way to delete emails off the device without deleting them on the server, and no calendar synchronisation, but all is work.

Now the fun really starts

On the 30th of May I get an email/text from O2 saying my bill is £470 more than it is usually.

I contacted customer services and ask about the problem and am told that it's data charges, so I tell them my settings (Blackberry Unlimited tariff and APN set to mobile.o2.co.uk) and it's confirmed those are the correct settings, but the customer services agent has started a "Network Investigation" and I wont get anymore data charges.

I am not convinced, but hope that all will be good.

On the Saturday I get another email/text now saying that my bill is £580 over my normal bill.

Unfortunately it wasn't until Sunday that I managed to contact customer services again. This time I'm told that I should move to a normal data tariff and that the old Blackberry Unlimited tariff is very old and not available to new customers and I should move immediately (the tariff has a 750MB data limit, which I've exceeded in the first week). I refrain saying I will wait for the network investigation.

I then decide to do some of my own investigations and find that the new BB10 devices don't work how the old pre-BB10 devices work (the old BES and BIS connections went through a "hardwired" blackberry.net "private" APN that was embedded in the Blackberry software itself). The new devices (at least for a BIS - which is the Blackberry Internet Service) now do use the actual Internet data connection and don't have the cludgery that was the old style BIS connection. The devices have become completely device centric ...

However on some forum it's stated that setting the APN to wap.o2.co.uk works and as it's with the Blackberry Unlimited service, it's free. So I plug that into the Blackberry and lo and behold no more data charges.

I also phoned O2 support to check and they agree that setting will work.

I still have a massive data bill and there is an on-going network investigation.

Twitter to the rescue

I have had a few conversations with @O2 on twitter, who are very responsive to tweets and good for sorting technical and other issues and get into a discussion with the "web team" who DM me and ask for details of the problem, which I duly sent them. It seems they have a massive influence and today (Tuesday 4th of June) I get a call from O2.

Unfortunately I do have to move to a standard new tariff (that only comes with 750MB of data), but they are going to wipe the data charges (eventually £600+ +VAT).

As soon as the tariff is changed (should come into play tomorrow), it looks like I'll have to ask for a PAC code and move to a new network, one that does unlimited data.

I've been a loyal customer with O2 on this number since 2005 (and on another number - moved to GiffGaff a year ago, since 1984). It will be a shame to move, but unlimited Internet is unlimited Internet.

So long and thanks for all the fish as they say.

EE and 3 may share 800MHz spectrum

Both EE and 3UK won 2 x 5MHz chunks of 800MHz spectrum in the recent UK spectrum auction for deploying LTE/4G mobile services. O2/Telefonica and Vodafone both won 2 x 10MHz chunks (with O2 having a coverage obligation).

EE currently has deployed LTE in their 1800MHz spectrum and they will relinquish some of this (2 x 15MHz) to 3UK by the end of 2013 when 3UK can deploy their own LTE services.

Generally the minimum requirement to deploy LTE is a requirement of at least 2 x 10MHz, so the two lots of 2 x 5MHz may cause EE and 3UK issues, so they are considering joining their efforts and sharing their joint spectrum, giving them access to a joint amount of 2 x 10MHz.

Currently this is just in the planning stage and it may not be technically feasible, though there is no reason why it shouldn't be.

Ofcom announces 4G frequencies awards

Ofcom, the super regulator today announced the awards (and subsequent prices) for the 4G spectrum awards. Everything Everywhere Ltd, Hutchison 3G UK Ltd and Telefónica UK Ltd (O2) did not have to pay anything following the original auction and awarding of their spectrum.

Niche Spectrum Ventures Limited (a subsidiary of BT Group plc) paid £15,061,179 to be allocated the spectrum bands 2,520 to 2,535 MHz and 2,640 to 2,655 MHz.

Vodafone Limited has paid £8,060,020 to be allocated the spectrum bands 801 to 811 MHz and 842 to 852 MHz, and an additional £4,039,123 to be allocated the spectrum bands 2,500 to 2,520 MHz and 2,620 to 2,640 MHz.

O2 was awarded 811 to 821 MHz and 852 to 862 MHz in the 4G spectrum award and has an obligation to cover 98% of the UK population by 2017.

The original auction raised £2,341,113,000 for the UK Treasury, this additional bidding has raised an extra £27,160,322 bringing the total raised to £2,368,273,322 for the UK coffers.

The licenses are now free to deploy 4G (LTE) services on these bands.

Last week Ofcom announced the winning bidders for 4G spectrum and amounts bid for it.

Everything Everywhere Ltd	2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz and 2 x 35 MHz of 2.6 GHz	£588,876,000
Hutchison 3G UK Ltd	2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz	£225,000,000
Niche Spectrum Ventures	2 x 15 MHz of 2.6 GHz and 1 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired)	£186,476,000
Telefónica UK Ltd	2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz (coverage obligation lot)	£550,000,000
Vodafone Ltd	2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz, 2 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz and 1 x 25 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired)	£790,761,000

Sky buys O2 Broadband

BSkyB the media giant has agreed to acquire O2/Telefonica's O2 broadband service (this also includes the Be broadband service that O2 originally acquired to launch their broadband services). Sky will initially pay Telefonica £180m followed by another £20m following the successful migration of the customer base.

O2/Be have 560,100 broadband customers which added to Sky's 4,235,000 customers gives them 4,795,100 customers and pushes Sky into 2nd place in the UK broadband market following BT Retail with 6,569,000 and putting VirginMedia into 3rd place with 4,465,000.

The acquisition also covers O2's fixed line telephony unit and will increase Sky's consumer offering.

Though there is overlap in terms of infrastructure, O2's network will be migrated on to Sky's existing network - though it's likely there will be some exchanges that O2 have unbundled that Sky haven't - which means Sky's LLU (local loop unbundled) network will grow slightly as they move into those exchanges.

Sky will maintain O2's LLU offering (i.e. wholesale broadband service offered to other operators), but O2's LLU business will be migrated on to Sky's network. This should be a 'good thing' as O2's network reach will increase as they get access to Sky's unbundled exchanges, however some operators are worried that the quality of the underlying network will decrease and thus the customer experience may deteriorate.

The deal still has to get regulatory approval, but assuming there are no objections it should complete by April.

The added cash (which cant hurt as Telefonica/O2 has just spend a chunk on buying 800MHz spectrum in the recent 4G spectrum auctions) will be used to accelerate the rollout of 4G services.

Ofcom proposes to allow 4G on all 2G and 3G bands

Ofcom, the Super regulator, has opened a consultation to allow the liberalisation of all existing 2G and 3G bands so they can also be used for 4G (LTE) services.

This would mean O2 and Vodafone can refarm both their 900MHz 2G spectrum and their 2.1GHz 3G spectrum, EE (the combined entity of Orange and T-Mobile) have already started refarming of their 1800MHz spectrum, but they will be allowed to also refarm their 2.1GHz 3G spectrum. 3UK only have (currently) 2.1GHz 3G spectrum but will be able to refarm this and when EE transfer around 25% of their 1800MHz spectrum to 3UK they will also be allowed to use this for 4G (though this is not expected to happen until September 2013).

This is separate from any spectrum that is currently being auctioned (800MHz and 2.6GHz) though Ofcom has not yet announced who is bidding for what spectrum.

3UK have announced that when they launch 4G services, they will not differentiate on price between 4G and 3G services. The consultation is available here and interested stakeholders can respond on-line.

Ofcom announces bidders for 800MHz and 2.6GHz auctions

Ofcom the super regulator that covers amongst other things radio spectrum has announced the bidders that have been accepted for the 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum auctions (a total of 250MHz is being made available). The details of who is bidding for what has not been made available.

Each of the following paid a £100,000 deposit and the actual auction will take place in early 2013.

• Everything Everywhere Limited (UK)
• HKT (UK) Company Limited (a subsidiary of PCCW Limited)
• Hutchison 3G UK Limited
• MLL Telecom Ltd
• Niche Spectrum Ventures Limited (a subsidiary of BT Group plc)
• Telefónica UK Limited
• Vodafone Limited

The four existing mobile network operators (MNOs) EE, 3UK, O2 (Telefonica) and Vodafone were expected to bid and will probably bid for the 800MHz spectrum.

BT was a preferred outsider and will probably be bidding for 2.6GHz spectrum.

HKT's parent PCCW already has a nationwide 3.4GHz license (but it's a weird LTE band) but they have launched an LTE-TD wholesale service in the London area, so they may well bid for 2.6GHz spectrum as at least this is a common worldwide LTE band.

MLL already have a low power GSM license and also will probably have bid for a 2.6GHz license, especially as they are developing their own LTE stack (via a 3rd party).

Next year Ofcom will announce which bidders bid for what spectrum.

Ofcom starts 800MHz and 2.6GHz auction race

Ofcom, the Super regulator that looks after radio spectrum (amongst others) has today released guidance for applicants and bidders PDF) and application forms for the 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum auctions.

These are similar to recent other spectrum auctions and all applications must be received by Ofcom by December 11th 2012 and at the same time Ofcom must have received a £100,000.00 deposit (which is refundable if the bidder doesn't win or withdraws from the auction within the withdrawal timeframe).

Ofcom will have some time to ensure the validity of the application and applicant (they must pass tests to ensure they are valid applicants).

On the 2nd dat Ofcom will tell all bidders of other bidders in their group.

Ofcom then allow 4 days for bidders to notify Ofcom on any group overlaps.

Ofcom then has 3 days to notify successfully qualified bidders, publish them on the Ofcom website and notify them of the last day for withdrawal.

The last day for withdrawal is 2 days following publication.

Ofcom will then publish the list of actual bidders.

Ofcom will use an electronic bidding system which allows bids to be submitted in rounds (this all gets very complicated, especially when an additional opt-in round is added to the process). Ofcom will train bidders on the use of the electronic voting system.

It's expected that at least O2 and Vodafone will bid for the 800MHz spectrum, though 3UK may join in too as they don't have any sub 1GHz spectrum at present. The 2.6GHz spectrum (especially low power licenses) may be more of a jamboree with some unexpected players joining in.

Ofcom announces date for 800MHz and 2.6GHz auctions

Ofcom, the super regulator has announced that the auction for the 800MHz and 2.6GHz bands will commence on December 11th 2012.

The new regulations (pdf) covering the auction (know as a Standard Instrument) has been published and will come into force on November 23rd 2012.

Ofcom is proposing to auction the following lots: -

Lot Category	A(i)	A(ii)	B	C	D(i)	D(ii)	E
800 MHz 2x5 MHz	800 MHz 2x10 MHz (with coverage obligation)	1800 MHz 2x15 MHz (Divestment)	2.6 GHz 2x5 MHz (standard power)	2.6 GHz 2x10 MHz (shared low power)	2.6 GHz 2x20 MHz (shared low power)	2.6 GHz 5 MHz (unpaired)
Ofcom’s proposal	£225m	£250m	£225m	£15m	£3m per bidder, £30m threshold	£6m per bidder, £60m threshold	£0.1m

Lots A(i), A(ii) and C are suitable for generic mobile network operator LTE services, lot B is now irrelevant as EE have divested this spectrum to 3UK.

The low power bands D(i) and D(ii) are more suited to companies that have infrastructure and can offer femto cell type services (probably on a wholesale service to the main operators - for network offload), though new entrants could come in and offer innovative localised LTE services.

Lot E is probably suited to an operator who wants to offer broadband services (not using LTE which requires paired spectrum).

This means the minimum bid (if there only 1 bidder each for the low power license) is £499.1m, and if there are 10 low power bidders £580.1m. Obviously these are Ofcom's minimum bid values and the actual values could increase substantially.

Ofcom have also valued the 800Mhz significantly more than the 2.6GHz spectrum (as it has better propagation characteristics and therefore it's easier to cover large areas of population).

Ofcom agreed to move forward the auction after O2 and Vodafone threatened to take Ofcom to judicial review after allowing EE to offer LTE services on their 1800MHz spectrum, however O2 and Vodafone have no guarantees that they will win a license in either 800MHz or 2.6Ghz (though Ofcom can assess bidders not to be suitable to bid - but based on their stability etc).

Let the fun begin.

O2 upgrades HLR

O2 is spending £10m revamping it's mobile registration database system (know as an HLR or Home Location Register) as it has suffered 2 major outages in as many months. The HLR stores the customer IMSI (SIM number) and their real telephone number as well as location and other information. When a call comes in, the HLR is queried to find out how do deliver the call the mobile. If the HLR fails, then mobile calls will not work (as mobiles cant register on to the network) and calls to mobiles will fail too. The current HLR (or cluster of HLRs) are made by Ericsson and O2 is buying new systems.

EE to offer LTE for end of October

EE (the new brand that was Everything Everywhere) is to launch their LTE service on their 1800MHz spectrum by end of October 2012 covering 10 cities on launch and a further 6 by the end of the year. EE have now started selling LTE capable phones including the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy SIII LTE, Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Lumia 820, HTC One XL and the Huawei Ascend P1 LTE. The launch was delayed by complaints by Telefonica/O2 who didn't like Ofcom's decision to allow EE to refarm their 1800MHz spectrum which would in reality give them 12 to 18 months advantage as the only UK network to be able to offer LTE services (Vodafone didn't like it much either, but were less vocal). After Government intervention where O2/Vodafone agreed not to take legal action against Ofcom and EE agreed to delay the LTE launch until the dispute was resolved. It seems that Ofcom and the Government have agreed to push forward (slightly) the 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum auctions and move people out of the 800MHz spectrum more quickly so that these bands can be released for LTE use early in 2013. 800MHz is extremely valuable (it was the old analogue TV band) as it has extremely good propagation characteristics (i.e. it can penetrate buildings well) so is good for wide coverage in rural areas. The 2.6GHz spectrum has poor propagation characteristics though it suits urban areas where high data bandwidth is required. Both O2 and Vodafone are expected to bid for both bands. 3 has purchased the excess 1800MHz spectrum that EE had to sell off as part of the merger (as agreed with the European Competition Commission), however they don't actually get it until late in 2013 (which was the deadline for EE to get rid of it). Though it's likely that EE's launch will go ahead, there could still be problems in future as the operators could still mount legal battles. Another possibility is that a new entrant will try and land grab spectrum which could leave O2 and Vodafone out in the cold.

BT installs a lot of WiFi

BT has installed 500,000 (HALF A MILLION) WiFi access points in London and the Olympic Park in Stratford to cope with the number's of users on site. When spectators are leaving one game and the next set arriving there can be up to 300,000 people on the site and that's a hard peak to cope with. Operators (Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone) are offering their customers free access to around 4,000 of the WiFi access points to off-load the mobile networks which will be creaking under the loads. BT has installed around 3,000 miles of fibre and the network is carrying about 60GB/s (i.e. around 480Gb/s). BT has installed around four times the capacity that was available at the Beijing games.

Ofcom announces 4G auction

Ofcom the super regulator has published a statement on the forthcoming 4G auction of 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum.

The 800MHz spectrum has become available due to the switching off of analogue television services (the digital divide) while 2.6GHz was reserved for future IMT-2000 (3G) services.

The 800MHz spectrum will be auctioned as 2 x 30 MHz blocks (paired spectrum) while the 2.6GHz band will consist of 2 x 70MHz blocks and a 50 MHz single (unpaired) block. This spectrum amounts to an 80% increase on all spectrum allocated to date.

Existing spectrum holders can bid for increased allocations, though spectrum will be reserved for a new entrant (i.e. one that isn't Telefonica O2, Everything Everywhere and Vodafone), this new entrant could be Hutchison 3G (who currently do not have any 2G i.e. sub 2 GHz spectrum.

The 800MHz licensee will have to meet 98% indoor coverage which implies 99.5% outdoor coverage, by 2017. The licensee will also have obligations to cover 95% of the populations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ofcom will not reserve any spectrum for low power localised services, though a low power provider can apply for a national license.

Ofcom is reserving spectrum portfolios for a new entrant, these are

Portfolio	800 MHz	1800 MHz	2.6 GHz
1	2 x 15 MHz
2	2 x 10 MHz		2 x 10 MHz
3	2 x 5 MHz	2 x 15 MHz
4		2 x 15 MHz	2 x 20 MHz

EverythingEverywhere have to relinquish 2 x 15 MHz paired spectrum as part of their arrangements with the EU when they combined T-Mobile and Orange. Ofcom have considered the request from EverythingEverywhere as to allow them to ref arm their 1800 MHz spectrum for LTE us independently from this spectrum auction and will announce its results later this year.

Ofcom has published a draft legal document which implements the auction rules, the consultation will close on 11th September 2012.

Ofcom will invite application to bid before the end of 2012 with the auction starting in 2013 and licenses awarded in March 2013.

Winners of spectrum are expected to roll-out LTE services on the new spectrum starting in the middle of 2013 with consumer services being available after that.

Ofcom Telecom Complaints Q1 2012

Ofcom the Super regulator that covers telecoms, broadcasting, spectrum, media and the postal system has released details about Telecoms complaints in the period January through March 2012. This covers fixed line telephone, fixed broadband, mobile telephony and Pay TV services. Ofcom itself receives around 300 complaints per day, usually when a consumer can not resolve an issue with the relevant supplier. These reports are logged, while there are many more issues reported to the suppliers themselves that Ofcom never gets to hear of. Fixed line telephony: BT Retail, Sky, TalkTalk Group and Virgin Media of which TalkTalk had the highest number of complaints with Virgin Media receiving the least number of complaints. Most complaints related to billing and customer service issues. Fixed broadband: BT Retail, Sky, TalkTalk Group, Virgin Media and Orange Home. Again TalkTalk had the most complaints and Sky the least mainly about line faults and other service issues. Mobile telephony: 3UK, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone and Virgin Mobile with Three getting most complaints and O2 least relating mainly to disputed charges and customer service issues. Pay TV services: Sky, BT Vision, and Virgin Media with Sky getting the least complaints and BT Vision the most mainly relating to their sales processes and problems with billing. The Ofcom summary can be found here.

O2 to WiFi London Olympics

O2 has announced plans to put in place 13,000 WiFi hotspots across London and out to Stratford to cover the London Olympics in 2012.

The company is making deals with local councils to use street furniture (such as lamp posts) to provide the coverage. It's hoping to offer the largest free WiFi network in London, competing with other operators such as The Cloud (bought by Sky) and BT Openzone who operate their own network and have hotspots in every Starbucks store.

The network will require users to go to a landing page which will have localised advertising which O2 hope to recover costs through.

O2 will also use the network to off-load data traffic from their mobile network. Though WiFi can be used to cover large areas, it's not really designed for that purpose and can suffer from congestion when many WiFi networks co-exist.

O2 prepares for Glastonbury

O2 (the subsidiary of Telfonica) has been working in the background for the Glas
tonbury Festival that opened yesterday, by installing 6 cell sites around the fe
stival site.
By the time the festival closes, O2 will have spent 200 days with a team of 20 people making sure everything has been set-up and kept working smoothly so that the 150,000 or so revellers can keep calling or textting each other.

O2 expect that festival goers will talk for over 3.4m minutes and use up 1088GB of data (that's over 1TB) which is a lot of traffic for a 5 days event. O2 will also be monitoring the network and ensuring it will be tuned for peak periods such as when a band finishes when everybody uses their phone to find out where their frends are.

Orange are also associated with the festival and are known to add extra cell sites to increase coverage, but this year they are offering an app (Apple, Android and Nokia) that allows punters to see who's playing on what stages and the acts that follow. They will also be providing a charging station suitable for hundreds of people to simultaneously get a boost, however this year they are also trailling t-shirts that have a piezo-electric film that converts audio into electricity and each shirt should be able to charge two phones over the 5 days.

Glastonbury is now really becoming a 'techno' festival, maybe next year robots will be seen in the crowds.

O2 UK follow Vodafone with SMS access to Twitter

UK O2 users can now send tweets from the mobile phone using SMS (and of course receive them via SMS too).

The system is set-up like the already working Vodafone system where device updates are enable per user and/or for replies and/or direct messages.

Messages are sent to (ro come from) 86444.

Sending messages to your phone is free while sending messages to Twitter will cost a the same as a standard SMS, though they can be included in any SMS bundle deal. O2 are operating a fair use policy whereby if you receive more than 600 messages per month, you'll be asked to cut your usage down.

It now only a matter of time before the other MNOs follow suit.

Ofcom 2.6GHz spectrum Auction

Though T-Mobile has dropped their intention to take Ofcom to Judicial Review, O2 have now taken Ofcom to Judicial review and are attempting to include T-Mobile's intention even though T-Mobile pulled out. This will occur in April.

It has now also been ported that there is the potential for interference to radars operating in the 2.7GHz band which include airport radar. Therefore at least initially there will need to be coordination between 2.6GHz licensees and radar operators (such as the CAA and some ship types operated by the MoD and others).

At some point in the future the radar systems will be adjusted such that interference from 2.6GHz will be minimised.

Ofcom is still intending to launch the auction as soon as the judicial review has taken place (assuming it goes there way).

O2 sites crashes with 3G iPhone demand

O2's site went down this week due to the massive demand for iPhones.

When the initial iPhone was announced O2 has 35,000 initial web inquiries, with the 3G variant they had 200,000 inquiries.

O2 say that Apple is restricting supplies and they may have difficulties satisfying demand.

The iPhone is still considered a consumer phone even with its push email and VPN capabilities, though O2 has announced business tariffs.

RIM's new Blackberry Bold (which seems to be delayed until August) has missed a trick as it could have caused a dent to Apple's launch, especially as it now has the iTunes (iPod) client software built-in.