The highly sought-after radio spectrum which will be freed up through the digital television switchover, will be auctioned off on Thursday by Britain's media regulator, Ofcom.

The "digital dividend" spectrum is in the UHF band currently used by the terrestrial television broadcasters. 

The overall benefit from the use of the digital dividend was estimated to be between 5 billion pounds ($10.2 billion) to 10 billion pounds of added benefit to the economy over 20 years.

It said in a statement "To maximize these benefits, Ofcom plans to auction most of the digital dividend in 2009, offering licenses that allow users to decide the technology and service, and that can be traded after award,"

"This makes the digital dividend the highest quality spectrum likely to be released in the UK in the next 10 or 20 years," it said.

It will be suitable for a wide range of uses including mobile television, local television, ultra-fast wireless broadband services and more digital terrestrial television channels in either standard or high-definition.