We must signal an end to this airwave auction mess

While the British public were being reminded of the economic grind they face over the next five years, Ed Richards, Ofcom's chief executive, was sounding off at a conference in Brussels. Normally unflappable, the source of his frustration was a controversial plan to auction Britain's airwaves.

When the analogue TV signal is switched off next year, the spectrum it frees up can be recycled by mobile phone operators to improve mobile internet access and connect rural areas at low cost.

Spectrum sounds like a subject that should only interest the kind of people who were radio hams in another life. But it is worth remembering they don't make it any more - hence the extraordinary scrap that has developed between Vodafone, Telefonica, Everything Everywhere (the owner of Orange and T-Mobile) and Three, who all have BlackBerry and iPad traffic clogging their networks. And all Osborne's talk of dynamic businesses being set up across the nation to generate economic growth can't get going without strong communication links.

The spectrum on offer is likely to be the most valuable asset the Government will sell during this term of office, worth far more than Royal Mail or the state's stake in Urenco, the uranium processor. Analysts think it could be worth up to £5 billion, but after £22.5 billion was raised when 3G licences were sold in 2000, no one really knows.

Initially slated to take place in 2009, the sale will now happen late next year. It has been delayed by some mobile operators clinging onto the airwaves they already have the right to use and others calling for a level playing field that would see some spectrum given up or a cap governing what can be bought by a single player.

The lawyers have been kept busy, much to Richards' chagrin, and auction rules have been drawn and redrawn. As sell-offs go, the run-up to this one has been a shambles.

"When litigation becomes essentially strategic rather than based on objective grounds, and when it has the effect of holding back innovation and hampering growth, it is legitimate to ask whether the overall legislative framework fully supports the public interest in this increasingly vital area," Richards said in the speech.

The big loser is the consumer and businesses. America and Asia already have 4G superfast mobile networks. At this rate, Britain will be the last European country to embark on a sale that will lead to them being built here.

The matter has already been passed between the Government and Ofcom several times. The irony is the regulator feared having its fangs blunted by the coalition. That failed to happen - and it still can't lift the impasse.

If quiet diplomacy isn't working, maybe the free marketeers should have a try. Selling to the highest bidder usually works. That way, British companies might actually be able to demonstrate their technology leadership when the Olympics comes to town next year, instead of suffering from an embarrassing radio silence.

Svanberg fell short at BP but can still drive Volvo

When I flew to Stockholm to interview Carl-Henric Svanberg two years ago, he bemoaned the fact that his every move was chronicled in the Swedish tabloids.

That's no surprise: as chief executive of Ericsson, the telecoms equipment maker, he ran a small country's largest industrial company. Every Swede, directly or indirectly, had a stake in his success.

Svanberg's great joy was that his appointment as chairman of BP was greeted with a chorus of "Carl who?" by those from outside his industry and country.

If a bigger job could lower his profile, so much the better.

Little did he know that the Deepwater Horizon disaster was just around the corner.

It is hard to predict how any chairman would have dealt with something as game-changing as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, particularly one who had only been in the job for a few months beforehand.

Yet for all the attempts retrospectively to air-brush Svanberg's performance in those critical few months, it is hard not to come away with the impression that his leadership fell short. So what is one supposed to make of his expected new job, as chairman of Swedish lorrymaker Volvo?

It maintains his position in the Scandinavian goldfish bowl, but of course he has the time to do it alongside BP. His workload at the oil company has since stabilised, meaning it takes up no more than the three days a week it was meant to in the first place.

That gives Svanberg ample opportunity to win over BP investors who are still not sold on the oil giant's strategy laid out by chief executive Bob Dudley that will see it slim down and raise shareholder returns. Nearly two years in, some still don't want the Swede to get too comfortable in the role, even though the company says he is going nowhere.

That's as maybe, but just in case, it is always easier to leave one job when you have another one to fall back on. For a businessman of Svanberg's stature, that's as much good PR as it is good career development.