So this is the launch month for Spectrivity. Much faffing with IT, bank accounts and contracts.
But some fun stuff too – a panel discussion at Ofcom’s excellent conference ‘Spectrum – Mapping the Future’ at the beautiful Royal Geographical Society. A whole day discussing spectrum – what could be better?
I was on a panel chaired by Chris Woolford with Jonas Wessel (Chair, RSPG), Paris Mashile (Councillor, ICASA) and Hema Remnani, (Director, IMDA). In the context of a lively discussion on international spectrum management, I talked a little about complexity, trust and value.
- Complexity: to me you never actually get rid of complexity, you just move it around. Perhaps between the regulator, service provider, device or consumer, but wherever it sits there is always a cost associated with it.
- Trust: to see real change in the way we manage spectrum I believe we need to fix the problem of trust, between the various industry stakeholders as well as with policymakers. As a result of this lack of trust I don’t believe we are solving the right problems. Instead we often end up with false compromises, conservative assumptions and wasted opportunity.
- Value: finally I talked a little about the difficulty of valuing spectrum in the 5G Era – a combination of 5G, AI, Big Data and IoT. I asked, as I always do, for greater predictability from policymakers and regulators to help organisations better value spectrum in an increasingly uncertain world.
Exciting times indeed…..