Governments need to release spectrum, price it fairly and aggregate...
Governments need to release spectrum, price it fairly and aggregate demand to help industry meet the promise of mobile, said Gabriel Solomon, a senior vice president at GSMA, speaking in a follow-up to the World Summit on the Information Society.…
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Universal access to voice and basic data services will be achieved in time to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals in 2015, Solomon said. Universal access for mobile broadband will take another 15-20 years, he said. The real risk comes from national jurisdictions that skew investment incentives, he said, and don’t provide consistency for license holders. Some countries are trying to price spectrum at a premium, which spurs urban rollout to get a return, he said. Backhaul is a “big stumbling block” for broadband in emerging markets, Solomon said. The public and private sectors need to partner to beat the backhaul problem, he said, referring to national governments’ using “demand aggregation” to spur investment. The mobile industry’s pledge to G-20 leaders that it will invest more than $800 billion over the next five years in mobile broadband still stands, Solomon said.