Broadband: 4G Mobile

Lord Gordon of Strathblane Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, there is general agreement that rolling out this broadband is in the interests of the economy and of the country as a whole. This development affects mainly those who are on Freeview rather than on satellite and cable. Detailed work has gone into checking which people will be the most affected, and the final figures are very much lower than the 2 million being suggested. From the Ofcom test it appeared that most people had no problem with the filters, but for those who do there will be additional resources to help them.

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane]

How has this situation come about? I confess that I had always thought that, as with most things, we tended to gold-plate our spectrum separation. I was a member of a Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, which only two years ago took evidence on the switchover of digital radio and television, and no one involved reported any problems.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

All these developments can happen quite quickly with the rollout. With this one, it was not previously appreciated quite how much interference there might be when the 800-megahertz spectrum was rolled out for other reasons. The properties most affected by this will be those that are very close to the masts. Most of the others will have minimal interference, which can be dealt with relatively straightforwardly. A lot of contingency planning has gone into ensuring that people are not disadvantaged.