§ Mr. John Browneasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he has received the Director-General of Oftel's advice on the future of bands I and III and on wide area paging; what conclusions he has reached in the light of this advice; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Pattie[pursuant to his reply, 28 June 1985, c. 506]: Both my Department and Oftel have received a number of representations about the difficulties faced by prospective applicants for trunked private mobile radio networks in band III in completing their applications by the original deadlines.
I am anxious that no time should be lost in establishing pmr services in band III but it would be wrong to ignore 795W the comments that have been received. In the circumstances I have consulted the Director-General of Telecommunications and he has agreed to extend the period for receiving applications for national trunked pmr services to 1 October 1985 and for trunked pmr services in the London area to 1 November 1985. The Director-General of Telecommunications will still make his recommendations to me on national trunked pmr services by the end of the year. For the services in London he will make his recommendations by 1 February 1986. The date for making applications to my Department for local trunked pmr networks outside London will also be put back to 1 November.