Weekly wrap: The removal of post boxes adds a new responsibility for spectrum management

PolicyTracker is a journal of spectrum management, so we don’t write about postal services. But I wanted to make an exception: from this year, the Danish state-run postal service will no longer deliver letters. The service started 400 years ago, and its red post boxes are being removed. That a government could dispense with such a familiar icon from every street corner brought home something we all know: societies are going digital.   

However, this digitisation is often a drip-drip process, small changes here and there, far-away abstract targets in policy documents, huge variations between countries. It takes powerful visual illustrations like this to drive the point home.  

Governments can paint a breathless picture of a bright new communications future, but there’s sadness and social disruption in digitisation too. In Denmark, a splash of colour is leaving the landscape.

The country is ahead of the curve: from 2000 to 2024, the number of letters sent in Denmark fell from 1.4 billion to 110 million, a 92% drop. McKinsey estimates that globally, volumes of physical mail have fallen by 30% or more from their historical peaks

Why does this matter to spectrum policy? Psychologically, letter boxes gave us a feeling of certainty that communication was possible, and the state would help us contact friends, family, organisations, and participate in political and cultural life.

What gives us that feeling now? Having a mobile signal. Without it we feel disturbed, disconnected: cut off personally, socially, and politically. 

As the postal service shrinks, spectrum policy-makers have a greater weight to bear. Psychologically, the connectivity they engineer creates the same feeling of well-being and social inclusion that we used to associate with post boxes.

Here’s what PolicyTracker covered this week:

• Sri Lanka raised USD 34 million in its very first spectrum auction; the 3.5 and 26 GHz bands were released.
• There’s a legal dispute in the Falklands between Starlink and the sole mobile operator
• The mobile industry has been lobbying for more involvement in RSPG work
• A leak of the European Digital Network Act suggests some big spectrum framework reforms
• The US proposed a new approach to the 6 GHz band, opening it for geofenced variable power devices, enabling smart glasses and other wearables
• The Australian operator proposes an enhanced simultaneous multi-round auction (ESMRA) format for the 2.3 and 2.6 GHz bands