The Telecoms Industry

BACKGROUND

Mobile phone use and wireless digital technology has exploded over the past 10 years. The mobile phone companies currently use 2nd (2G) & 3rd (3G) generation wireless technology and we are now seeing the emergency services transferring to Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) as their national wireless communications network. More recently wireless broadband has further added to the demand for new sites and installation on existing towers and buildings and these companies are competing with fixed line providers such as BT and NTL. Whilst the mobile phone operators have now largely achieved the 90% network coverage required by their licences by 2007, more equipment is needed and more sites are required.

The emergence of the mobile internet is creating huge competition in the market. The mobile phone companies provide mobile internet services by way of their 3G networks but WiFi does seem to be the preferred solution at the moment and many believe the next ground breaking technology to immerge will be WIMAX and there is speculation that the mobile phones operators will move to a 4th generation solution to compete in this emerging market.

As many landlord and landowners will now appreciate, in the early days, very few surveyors understood the value of a mast site and solicitors generally failed to appreciate the dangers of the Telecommunications Act 1984. As a result a very large proportion of early telecoms documents are defective, either because rental levels are too low, or because they do not contain enough protection for the landlord. This is a very common problem.