Digital Economy Bill

No doubt the hon. Gentleman will share my deep frustration over the fact that when mobile phone 3G licences were auctioned in the early 2000s, in order to get a big return to the Treasury they were auctioned without geographic coverage requirements. I think that was a serious mistake for this country. We have since engineered into the licence agreements mobile phone geographical coverage of 90%. The geography that is being covered is rising rapidly at the moment. For instance, one provider had 50% coverage last year; it is 75% now, and it has to get up to 90%. That shows how it is increasing. It is pity that from the period of the 3G licence in the early 2000s up to 2014, there were no requirements for geographic coverage, which meant that we fell behind. Thankfully, we are now catching up. As the head of Ofcom has confirmed to the Select Committee, we are in discussions with the mobile operators about getting to a universal 100% geographical coverage in the next licence period.