So you’re up on a massive hill in the middle of nowhere, you slip, fall over, and break your ankle. Sucks to be you right? But fear not – here comes Scottish Mountain Rescue a group of volunteer lifesavers who have found your position, and haul you back down to safety.

But, what if the mountain rescue guys never came? Why wouldn’t they come you ask? Well it’s simple really. Ofcom, the telecoms regulator wants to increase the cost of using vital VHF Radio frequency causing a severe problem for not only mountain rescue, but lifeboat teams, by around £100,000 each.

Now these brave volunteers have been asked to write to Ofcom to complain about the raised prices that’s already costing them around £38,000 a year for a licence around 156Mhz – which is actually a 50 percent discount on the standard rate.

Ofcom believes that to ensure licenses value, their spectrum must pay a market price for it. If they don’t value it, then they don’t have the motivation to use it efficiently. The best way to establish a market price is to auction of the spectrum.

Any attempt to give the spectrum away for the low low price of free, would undermine the premise that cost makes for efficient use of resources. The big problem now is that if the regulators decide to force these rescue teams to pay, then we could see a lot more accidents in the highlands, that don’t have a happy ending.