The 60th meeting of ECC Spectrum Engineering working group (WG SE) was held last 10-14 October in the Estonian capital Tallinn, attended by some 54 participants, including observers from Alcatel-Lucent, Bouygues Telecom, Cable Europe, the European Communications Office (ECO), Ericsson AB, ETSI, Geyser-Telecom Ltd, GIFAS, Globalstar and Philips International.
The following documents were approved after the consultation phase:
- ECC Report 170: "Specific UWB applications in the bands 3.4-4.8 and 6-8.5 GHz location tracking applications for emergency services (LAES), location tracking applications type 2 (LR2) and location tracking and sensor applications for automotive and transportation environments (LTA)";
- ECC Report 171: "Impact of unwanted emissions of Iridium satellites on radio-astronomy operations in the band 1610.6-1613.8 MHz".
The following documents were adopted on a preliminary basis and sent for public consultation:
- Draft ECC Report 172 "Broadband Wireless Systems Usage in 2300-2400 MHz";
- Draft ECC Report 173 "Fixed Service in Europe - Current Use and Future Trends Post 2011";
- Draft ECC Report 174 "Compatibility Between the Mobile Service in the Band 2500-2690 MHz and the Radiodetermination Service in the Band 2700-2900 MHz";
- Draft ECC Report 175 "Co-Existence Study Considering UWB Applications Inside Aircraft and Existing Radio Services in the Frequency Bands from 3.1 GHz to 4.8 GHz and from 6.0 GHz to 8.5 GHz";
- Draft ECC Report 176 "The Impact of Non-Specific SRD's on Radio Services in the Band 57-66 GHz";
- Draft revision of ECC/REC/(02)05 "Unwanted Emissions".
A new task was created to introduce 3G (including LTE/Wimax) on board aircraft. The bands analysed for connectivity will be those from 1800 MHz, 2 GHz (1920-1980 MHz and 2110-2170 MHz) and 2.6 GHz, while for NCU protection the 800 MHz band will be added. This task takes into consideration the mandate from the Radio Spectrum Committee, which will be forwarded to CEPT shortly.
The group will begin by examining the introduction of smaller channels (between 25 kHz and 2 MHz identical to those existing in the 1.4 GHz band, to place in the centre gaps or guard bands for the FWS channels in 3-15 GHz. The objective is associated to the fact that the bands below 3 GHz are being populated by mobile service. The aim of this study is to assess the possibility of moving those low-capacity links to bands above 3 GHz.
The group is currently studying a proposal from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) on the introduction of medical body area network systems (MBANS) operating in the 2360-2400 MHz band (Draft TR 101 557), as well as in the 1785 1805 MHz; 2400 2483.5 MHz and 2483.5 2500 MHz frequency bands.
The group is also studying whether to introduce broadband direct-air-to-ground communication (DA2GC), as described in the SRDoc (ETSI TR 103 054), in the 1670 1675 MHz/1800-1805 MHz, 2400 2483,5 MHz, 3400 3600 MHz and 5855 5875 MHz frequency bands.
A working group called the Forum Group was created, to be jointly established with the Frequency Management working group (WG FM) and cover power line telecommunications (PLT). The aim is to orient administrations in future votes on the IEC/CENELEC standard, and to resolve eventual cases of interference.
This WG SE meeting also included the announcement of two chair mandate terms for PT SE24 and PT SE40, for which WG SE must find new chairpersons. The group praised the excellent work of both chairpersons.
The next Spectrum Engineering working group meeting will be held on 26-30 March 2012 in Sweden.
