John

Most of the reports available come from excited 'newspapers' which are even quoted as a source by the technical press. All the figures seem to come from the middle of 2012 and are therefore out-of-the-air guesses - I've seen figures ranging from 100,000 to 500,000.

Typically, our present government doesn't intend to deal with the problem, although they are selling the spectrum for 4G. They have passed the responsibility to the mobile phone operators who will acquire the spectrum in the auction shortly. They will then be committed to providing filters where necessary to solve the problem.

Meanwhile, an Interim Oversight Board has been formed by the industry, and the only good thing I can see in all this is that the part-time chair of the Board is a radio amateur. At least he will understand the problem.

General knowledge of this is very limited, and I don't expect that to change until the licences are awarded. At present, nobody is responsible for making the public aware of the possible problem. I do expect the mobile operators to make an effort - there's a lot of 'churn' in the UK mobile market and TV interference or blackout would be a certain way to lose your mobile customers.

Phil