Ofcom triples licence fees for mobile operators to £200m Ofcom has tripled its spectrum use licences fees for O2, Vodafone, Three, and EE, pushing the figure to damn near £200m. The regulator concluded that mobile operators should pay a combined annual total of £80.3m for the 900MHz band, and £119.3m for the 1800MHz band. The spectrum is used to provide voice, and data via 2G, 3G …
So, what does OFCOM think this licence fee price is for? The Administration costs?
I'm sorry, but since OFCOM does most of its administration in Excel spreadsheets (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/numbering/) I can't see this price being anything other than a way to wave: OI - You! Told you I was important, Im not just about trying to enforce DAB radio.
So do OFCOM think they are getting value for Money from the Taxpayer?
Well, i'm no Worstall, but I can work out that if companies are continually being pushed to produce bigger and bigger profits, which is what a company does, I can only see this being passed on to the 'Taxpayer', with the added bonus of probably VAT on top.
So as a taxpayer, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you very much. Really. I mean it. I felt I wasn't paying enough as it is.
"Most financial traders and most businesses rely on Excel spreadsheets too, so not clear what your point is."
Because it isn't like they have a massive development budget feed to administer these kind of things.
Sorry, I hope this is clearer.
Its a stealthy tax rise. The mobile industry just passes the cost onto the consumer - in that sense they are just tax collectors. The government could cut out the middle man and tax calls at a penny a minute or whatever.
"How do you put a "market value" on a resource inherent to the universe we live in, again?"
You do as soon as you control local access to a resource people want to use.
It's the modern variety of the medieval : "You want to pass the river? No Problem, Mate.. Just hand over a couple of Florins, and those archers in that fort over there become quite uninterested in setting your ship on fire. It's all the paperwork, y'see? "
> New bill will be passed onto customers no doubt
Well, I hope EE doesn't do any cut backs in their Customer Service dept.
Cancellations still working fine this morning providing PAC codes. Seriously, what's triple-charging for using your answerphone out of Europe all about (termination fees, incoming international fees whilst a message is left and international outgoing fees if you want to retrieve)?
EE proposed solution: turn it off - at exactly the time you'd probably like to have it on whilst you sleep.
I guess they have to find the money to cover spectrum licence fees from somewhere.
The licences should be nominal cost and for a single infrastructure company that resells to Retail Operators. This will more than double efficiency because the spectrum is so limited.
Income from the VAT of the end users.
Taxing spectrum and splitting limited spectrum between companies is just greed and stupidity.
It's the standard drug dealers sales tactics - give something away for free and once everyone is hooked, shaft them. If they'd increased ten fold, Joe Public still wants 4G to watch cat videos on YouTube whilst on mass transit so if any of the existing operators pulled out of even one frequency, they'd lose the majority of punters overnight.
I think the Monopolies Commish should investigate a blatent abuse of monopolistic powers by OfCom.
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