60 seconds with Ofcom's Vaughan John

Vaughan John, Ofcom's head of business radio, discusses his role and the challenges facing business radio

How do you spend most of your time?

I am the principal spectrum policy manager with responsibility for business radio, programme making, and special events and TV white space. I spend most of my time working on Programme Making and Special Events (PMSE) and TV White Spaces (TVWS) as a result of the clearance of the 700MHz band (694-790MHz) for new mobile data services. But we are also working towards implementing the decisions we made for Business Radio (BR) in UHF Bands 1 and 2.

How has the industry changed since you started working in it?

I’ve only been directly involved with BR for just over a year. But things have largely remained the same for many years. Regardless of mobile phones, there is still a significant requirement for direct, privately-owned Push-to-Talk comms. Voice is the predominant technology and likely to be so for the next 10 years, although with increasing demand for data.