Mobile Operators summoned for meeting by Lord Mandelson over ubiquitous Mobile Broadband

The meeting called by Lord Mandelson will be attended by Executives from O2, Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3, the Guardian has reported.

The proposal for providing ubiquitous mobile broadband connection across most of the country would need the cooperation of the major mobile operators.

Lord Carter's report on Digital Britain touched on the fact that for UK to have universal broadband access it is essential to make wider use of the mobile broadband, providing connectivity to the rural and remote parts of the UK.

The 800 MHz spectrum used by the analogue TV will become free from 2012 onwards and an agreement is essential before the government can auction the spectrum off as it becomes available in 2012.

The 900 MHz spectrum was originally sold to Vodafone and O2 in the 1980s.

These frequencies will be ideal for the deployment of mobile broadband in the rural areas since the frequency of the spectrum would allow signal to be carried to large distances.

The report also suggests that the mobile operators will be rewarded, in return for this agreement, with an indefinite extension of 3G services.

This is the second personal initiative of Lord Mandelson in pushing forward some of the proposals in the Digital Britain report. Last week the business secretary is said to have personally pushed for expediting technical measures to tackle online piracy. The measures include internet connection being cut off for repeated violators who share files illegally through peer to peer (P2P) programmes.