Before your eyes glaze over, please, hear me out. This is, I'll admit once more, a bit of an anoraky issue. Or at least it is until you get to the implications. So, if you're still with me, get yourself a strong cup of coffee and strap yourself in tight as we head (only temporarily, I assure you) for the 'dork' side.
As some might remember hazily from dim and distant science lessons, the electromagnetic spectrum covers everything from nuclear radiation and the UV rays that give you sunburn, to visible light, right down to the frequencies that bring you mobile phone signals and television through your aerial. It's the mobile phone and TV signals which should interest us here, though.
Since there's a limited amount of data which can be sent on the space available, these portions of the radio spectrum are much coveted, with telecommunications companies prepared to pay handsomely for the rights to use them. And HM Government in London, which regulates these usages for us, is only too happy to collect the cash on our behalf.
It's big business too. When he was but a humble Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown managed to extract a whopping £22.5bn at year 2000 prices for the 5 new mobile phone network licenses. This is what became known as '3G', which you can use to get high-speed data on your mobile phone or a laptop, albeit at something of a premium cost.
It would have been a disaster for companies like Vodafone or Orange to have missed out on the chance to offer these enhanced mobile services, so they paid through the nose for the privilege. Having seen how successful the UK Government had been at milking the cash-rich telecoms companies for these lucrative licenses, the rest of Europe followed suit.
Results? The phone companies ended up having to overpay for the franchises; they then couldn't afford to expand 3G coverage as quickly as they might have liked; and in a bid to rebuild their finances, they then spent several years wringing this cash back from the poor consumer, through overcharging us for data usage, for using our phones overseas and by selling overpriced pictures and ringtones to kids.
Consequently, it's taken nearly a decade for 3G technology to really catch on in the UK. In Scotland, despite the fact that there's now an even faster fourth generation of the technology just around the corner, 3G coverage is still dismal. Venture too far away from the Central Belt, Inverness, the M74 or the main east coast ports, and you'll be back to using 20 year old technology – pitting a stagecoach against a bullet train.
And it's with the '4G' future that it looks like Labour is about to make exactly the same mistakes. Desperate for money, Brown will, as he announced in his 2007 budget, attempt to raise £30bn from the companies, this time from the spectrum which will become available after they've switched off analogue TV signals.
The trouble is, when this 'digital switchover' happens on our TV screens, for many people who are served by smaller relays rather than by the main TV transmitters, instead of getting 50-odd channels, you'll be stuck with about 18. Unless, that is, the government decides to keep some of this bandwidth for digital TV coverage in rural areas.
'OK, so everyone will get a good digital TV service that way, but it'll mean less money for the Government to repay its debts!', I hear you cry. Well, yes, indeed it would, and much, much less money too, if I had my way.
3G coverage isn't great in England, but it's hopeless in Scotland. If we want 4G to be better, then we need to do something radical, and here it is. Instead of having another auction for this spectrum, then why not give control of it to Scotland, and let the Scottish Government give it away for nothing?
That's right – after we've given everyone a decent free digital TV service from Gatehouse of Fleet to Gartly, let's give the rest of the spectrum away to the mobile companies free, gratis and for nothing. The catch, if you can call it that, is that in exchange for not paying the Scottish Government for this privilege, the companies successful in their bids will be the ones which promise to expand their Scottish geographical coverage the fastest.
So, Scotland takes control of one of her resources, rural Scotland gets the decent digital TV and mobile coverage which it lacks presently, and we take our place as one of the most digitally connected countries in the world. And since we'd be giving away something which we didn't have to begin with, the cost is negligible.
A Scottish solution to a Scottish problem; one which makes us better rather than worse off; and which won't cost a penny either. I bet Gordon Brown hates the idea already...
