Ofcom’s ongoing struggles to resolve legal and technical issues with the next-generation 4G mobile phone spectrum are seemingly prompting the regulator to delay the UK’s 4G auctions, which were originally scheduled for the first quarter of next year.

After having already moved its guidance for the 4G auction timing from the first quarter to the first half of 2012, Ofcom has recently warned that even the new schedule for the auction was “ambitious.”

Ofcom said in a statement: “We note that because these technical issues need to be satisfactorily resolved before new networks can be built, it will not be possible for mobile operators to start rolling out 4G until during the course of 2013 at the earliest regardless of when the auction itself takes place.”

Despite the fact that Ofcom has not yet disclosed any dates on the UK's 4G auctions, several media titles are reporting the that things are probably going off-track. It is also being presumed that the regulator will publish its final plans for the auction in November.

While Ofcom needs to structure the auction will great care, so as to ensure continuing competition as well as to protect the UK’s smallest mobile phone operator, Hutchison Whampoa’s 3, industry observers are of the opinion that any delay in the auction will also apparently hamper the government’s objective for the UK to have the best superfast broadband infrastructure in Europe by 2015.