The European Commission (EC) unveiled on 3 September 2012 a set of measures to deal with the exponential growth in mobile and wireless data traffic. The measures anticipate the possibility of the shared use of radio spectrum by wireless technologies, in particular broadband.
New technologies make it possible to share radio spectrum amongst several users - including internet access providers - or to use the spectrum available between TV frequencies, for example, for other purposes.
As the first measure of the new European Union (EU)'s radio spectrum policy programme, published on 14 March 2012, the EC calls for regulators to:
- support wireless communications innovation by monitoring and possibly extending the harmonized internal market frequency bands for which no licence is required (licence-exempt bands), through appropriate measures under the Radio Spectrum Decision (676/2002/EC);
- foster consistent regulatory approaches across the EU for shared rights of use that give incentives and legal certainty to all users (current and new), who can share valuable spectrum resources.
With these measures the EU intends to foster a coordinated European approach to spectrum sharing, which will lead to greater mobile network capacity, cheaper wireless broadband, and new markets such as tradable secondary rights for a given spectrum allocation.
Further information:
- Digital Agenda: Commission moves to foster wireless innovation through sharing of radio spectrum http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/929&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en
- Communication CE, Promoting the shared use of radio spectrum resources in the internal market, COM(2012) 478 final, Brussels, 03.09.2012 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/radio_spectrum/_document_storage/com/com-ssa.pdf
Related information on ANACOM's website:
- Publication of the EU spectrum policy programme https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1122844
