UK regulator Ofcom is to rethink its plan to repurpose certain 2G spectrum for new high-speed 3G services after receiving higher than expected interest in the airwaves, Ofcom CEO Ed Richards told a UK government committee yesterday. The Guardian reports that Ofcom will now delay a planned official communication on the scheme in favour of further consultation. The newspaper notes that the delay will please UK mobile operators O2 and Vodafone, which had both reacted furiously to Ofcom’s proposals when they were unveiled in September last year. Ofcom argued that the ‘re-farming’ of the spectrum from 2G to 3G would enable cheaper and faster mobile broadband services but the mobile operators claimed the move would disrupt existing 2G services.

Meanwhile, Ofcom’s plan to auction new spectrum made available by the switch to digital TV – the so-called ‘digital dividend’ – has also come under scrutiny this week. Richards said the regulator would not delay its planned timetable for the auction despite the fact that much of the spectrum will not be able to be used until 2012 when it is vacated by analogue broadcasters. Bidding on the auction is scheduled to begin in 2009. Unstrung also reports this week that Ofcom’s separate 2.6GHz spectrum auction scheduled to begin this summer could encourage ‘spectrum hoarding.’ As the auction is to be sold on a technology and service neutral basis, the report notes that some operators may be incentivised to buy spectrum purely to prevent new competitors or competing technologies from using it.