UK-DCMS proposal may Lead to "Mexican standoff " between operators and can hamper service quality

Recently UK government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) proposed to use "National Roaming" Concept to over come the coverage issues (Black-spots).

Vodafone-UK gone ballistic over this proposal as usual like whenever it observes something abnormal in terms "technological" aspects. Unfortunately it is forced to do the same everywhere where ever it operates around the world.  :-))


The reason which upset the RED GIANT is , technically it is going to be a suicidal attempt to  create a "NR" hotspots in between big strong coverages to cover those "Black Holes". DCMS's intention is good but the result such NR attempt will create huge issue in mobility aspects of customers. Even CDR-Call Dropt Rate will increase manifolds than before. As sensed by Vodafone this move will hamper existing happy customers also and the trouble extends to everybody who gets partnered in this effort. At th end It will be like a "Mexican standoff " between all parties.

Whereas UK-DCMS is not part of it and laughs at the stand...

I am really surprised at DCMS's proposal, always UK remained as one of the standard 
reference point for many countries and regularities around the world.

I will post some of the possible situations as picture in coming days as time permits.

I had similar situation when I was handling the technical part for the 2G/3G-ICR implementation for major OPCOs in GCC & India. 


Scenario-1 or 2 : A designated area is defined as "NR" Coverage, So that coverage border management is perfectly ok with relevant mobility parameters etc.

Scenario-3 : When a customer moves from West to North East / South East, hee needs to travel via many black holes / blind spots of Operator-A. If A is forced to use the NR to cover those black holes then the entire network will go for a toss in terms of performance of mobility & calls/session continuity etc. I have never seen a managed service operator can agree for this situation without demanding exclusions in key performance areas of SLA.

The best way forward is looking at Small/Femto cells in a shared site strategy.

UK-DCMS demanded a proposal from all the operators of UK and declared Nov-26 as the last date for the submission.

Even though Vodafone-UK has been loud enough to point out the "Mess" in the proposal, there is heavy silence from other biggies like O2/T-Mobile.

 Reference : http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/Press-Wire/messy-proposal-for-expanding-uk-mobile-coverage-is-unworkable-says-vodafone