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UK to Privatize Radio Spectrum?
judgecorp writes "The UK regulator, Ofcom, has decided that managing spectrum is a drag, and there are other people around that might do a better job. It is going to open up 73 percent of the radio spectrum to market forces, and make it technology-neutral and tradeable. So if one technology gets superseded, another one can get rolled out instead (subject to broadcast power limits) without Ofcom having to define what spectrum it should use. Radio was first regulated here 100 years ago this year, and a new regime is needed to fit new radio technology. Ofcom is quite proud to be ahead of the US on this one, because we have a recent Communications Act, and the FCC is 'hamstrung' by old laws - at least that's what the head of research at Ofcom said."
The UK government has the ability to seize back the privatised items if they are convinced that the privatisation was not successful longterm. This is what stops private companies from sitting on public resources. For example, British Rail was privatised at the start of the 1990s, with the actual physical rail network being sold to a private company called Railtrack, which the government had a shareholder interest in. In 2001 it was determined that Railtrack was not carrying out its job correctly and seized back the UK rail network after having a UK court agree, placing it in control of a public company called Network Rail. For those of you that think this is 'bad', this _is_ the agreement these companies entered into when they purchased the privatised utilities.