Mr. Alex Chisholm:

There are significant consequences for the companies if they do not achieve the minimum levels set and, ultimately, they put the actual licences at risk. In looking at what the actual achievement will be, we need to bear in mind that a 70% population coverage level takes one down to townlands of around 50 persons. We have said that all licenceholders have to achieve that. In that context, there are four winners of spectrum which means that four different networks will have to duplicate the mobile network infrastructure down to townlands of 50. That is quite a high level of duplication but we believe that it is positive competition. To take the level of duplication beyond that would probably be very wasteful and the consequences of that would be very high levels of charges to consumer and business users. We have to strike a balance here.

What we actually think will happen is that the number of operators in that 30% level, bearing in mind that all must cover up to 70%, will very likely turn out to be less than four. How that emerges will depend on the market dynamics that develop but what we have seen, in observing the market over a number of years, is that all operators have greatly exceeded their minimum requirements because they need to meet the needs of customers. I am sure the members of this House would have experience of that while travelling throughout the country, using mobile phones and other mobile devices. Professional users and the ordinary consumers today want to be able to use their devices wherever they are in the country. They want to have much better data access because they are using their devices more and more for data. They also want faster speeds. That is really what all this spectrum, which has particularly good propagation capabilities and is very good for covering nationwide, should bring in over the course of this year and beyond.