Time to open up UK white space – the final frontier for spectrum

[Commentary] Billions of machines talking to each other automatically, using tiny slivers of unused radio waves to improve the environment, healthcare and transport. This may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but the UK is taking an important step in the development of a new wireless technology.

Ofcom has announced the participants in a pilot that could lead to a nationwide rollout of “white space” technology next year. White spaces are the unused gaps in the radio spectrum all around us. Using them will make the UK one of the first countries to test a technology that could help to avert a global data capacity crunch. The work to ensure a future pipeline of spectrum to meet the demands is unrelenting. Britain must innovate to develop new technologies – like white spaces – that make the best use of this resource. We must match technical innovation with creativity and flexibility in the way that we manage spectrum. We must always look for opportunities to reuse spectrum more efficiently, including future release of prime spectrum, and we must seek new opportunities to share and to exploit existing allocations. By doing so we can help develop one of the world’s leading wireless economies.

[Richards is chief executive of Ofcom, the UK telecommunications regulator]