European Spectrum Agency envisaged by EU
Commissioner
by Trevor M5AKA
On 22nd November 2006, the EU Commissioner for Information Society and
Media Viviane Reding gave a speech in London to the European Leadership
Forum (ELF).
The subject was “Why we need an Internal Market in Europe for
Information Technology“. The speech covered topics such as RFID,
IPR and internal markets for Telecoms but the key section was that which
dealt with the Radio Spectrum.
It signalled a new European Spectrum Agency that would regulate the Radio
Spectrum from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. Such an organization would
inevitably take over some of the responsibilities of the national regulatory
bodies and the CEPT.
Commissioner Reding put forward some of the principles successfully pioneered
by the UK Regulator Ofcom such as Technology and Service Neutrality, increased
Licence-exemption and Secondary Trading in Spectrum.
While the adoption of these principles on a European level is to be welcomed
we must be aware of the potential threats to both the Amateur Radio and
Amateur Satellite services.
These experimental Amateur services are at the cutting edge of technology
in many areas and the young people who take up Amateur Radio become tomorrow’s
engineers, scientists, and technicians.
Problems could arise if parts of the spectrum currently used by these
vital services were sold off or if the noise floor in the Amateur allocations
were increased by the inappropriate use of some of the new communications
technologies that are now available.
Extract from Commissioner Reding’s speech:
Example 1: The need for an internal market for spectrum
Radio spectrum is a resource which is strategic for a seamless Information
Society. Its economic importance is enormous; services that depend on
spectrum are estimated to represent 200 billion Euros or 2-2.5% of GDP!
Spectrum use is an essential factor in many sectors: communication, entertainment,
transport, health, environment, security.
And demand is growing. People say that spectrum is a scarce resource.
Actually, this is not really the case. In fact the reason we don't have
enough spectrum is because we manage it badly! Important parts of the
spectrum are underutilized while others are congested.
Luckily there is help at hand. The digital technologies that are creating
growth opportunities for new services are more efficient in spectrum usage.
We estimate that the switch to digital television will increase the capacity
of the spectrum dedicated today to broadcast six-fold. A recent study
concluded that, just for Denmark, transferring this "digital dividend"
to mobile communications would increase GDP by €845 million/year.
That is why we need to monitor closely the allocation of freed spectrum
in the digital switch-over period.
Digital technologies can also help us to reduce interference problems,
permitting us a more flexible approach to spectrum use. In the longer
term, our traditional system of command and control of spectrum allocation
by public administrations will become obsolete. Whenever possible, policy
makers should not pick winners. Markets do that much better.
In order to use spectrum in an efficient way, I have made three concrete
proposals:
1. Encourage licence-exempt use of spectrum
to make room for innovative services with fewer interference problems.
2. Technology and service neutrality should
be the basis of all new spectrum decisions: this means that right holders
will be free to deploy any technology or service they wish.
3. Secondary trading should be progressively
introduced in a range of agreed bands in all Member States.
Spectrum has a very strong European dimension. Services and devices are
portable or easily transcend borders. Yet spectrum policy remains largely
national, with institutional governance systems that are notoriously complex
and driven by technical rather than by market considerations. This seriously
inhibits investments in new services, because European national markets
are simply too small to be worth the investment into new products and
services.
That is why we need to consider new institutional approaches. A European
Spectrum Agency, possibly integrated in a future European authority for
electronic communications, could be more efficient than 25 national authorization
schemes.
Full text of “Europe's Internal Market for Information
Technology” speech http://ec.europa.eu/comm/commission_barroso/
reding/docs/speeches/elf.pdf
Viviane Reding EU Commissioner for Information Society
and Media
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/commission_barroso/
reding/index_en.htm
Viviane Reding was a member of the North Atlantic Assembly
now known as the Nato Parliamentary Assembly
http://www.naa.be/
IARU Region 1 Eurocom Working Group (Chair Gaston Bertels
ON4WF)
http://www.darc.de/ausland/iaru/eurocom/index.html
AMSAT-NA (North American Amateur Satellite Organisation)
http://www.amsat.org/
AMSAT-UK (United Kingdom Amateur Satellite Organisation)
http://www.uk.amsat.org/
UK Microwave Group
http://www.microwavers.org/
Radio Society of Great Britain
http://www.rsgb.org/
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