Budapest hosted on 13-14 October the 36th meeting of the Frequency Information System Maintenance Group (EFIS MG) of the European Communications Office (ECO), chaired by Stefan Mayer-Bidmon from the German administration and attended by 13 participants, including ten national regulatory authorities (NRAs) and the ECO.
Among other activities, EFIS MG is in charge of maintaining the EFIS portal and developing and updating it in line with new spectrum policy of the European Commission (EC) and the R&TTE Directive (on radio and telecommunications terminal equipment and mutual recognition of their conformity) and especially revision and integration of radio interface specification (RIS) models. It is also responsible for reviewing ECC Decisions (ECC/DEC/(01)03 (on EFIS) and ECC/DEC/(03)05 (on the publication of information about frequency allocations and applications).
It was noted that ECO Report 03 on the licensing of mobile bands in CEPT now includes the 694-790 MHz, 1452-1492 MHz and 2.3-2.4 GHz frequency bands and that ECO Report 04 was created to focus on implementation of fixed service channel arrangements and block assignments in CEPT countries; like ECO Report 03 it will be managed from the EFIS portal.
The group discussed progress made in the EFIS portal since the last EFIS MG meeting in January 2015. The following stand out: improvements, for example, in how the Recommendation 70-03 implementation matrix is viewed, by introducing side bars; the start date field was included in the frequency usage rights and it is now possible to generate certain statistical information in the section corresponding to ECO Report 03 (e.g. number of usage rights per band) on bands for terrestrial radio applications capable of providing electronic communications service (TRA-ECS); and an added function making it possible to research radio interfaces by number.
Also discussed were proposals to improve the EFIS portal in the future. In a manner similar to Recommendation 70-03 and ECO Report 04 and with respect to information about implementation, it is notably foreseen that Recommendation T/R 25-10 on frequency ranges for the use of terrestrial audio and video programme making and special events (PMSE) applications will eventually be included in the EFIS. A function will also be developed whereby applications can be associated to respective allocations (e.g. allocation – broadcasting; application – DVB-T), excluding applications that do not have an associated allocation, such as the case of short range devices.
As usual, the NRAs attending the meeting reported on the current status of updates they have made or plan to make in the EFIS.
At its 83rd meeting the working group on Frequency Management (WG FM) approved for public consultation the revision of ECC Report 180 and mandated EFIS MG to consider at its October 2015 meeting the comments received and to adopt/approve the revised report for publication (as long as there are no controversial comments), in so far as WG FM’s next ordinary meeting will only be held in February 2016.
The consultation ended last 31 August, with comments received from Spain and the ECO. Note that at its last meeting WG FM mandated the ECO to check whether it was possible to shorten annex 7 of ECC Report 180 on CEPT, ECC and EC documents. The ECO therefore proposed developing a new report (ECC Report 05 on CEPT, ECC and EC deliverables – relation to application terminology in ECC Decision (01)03 annex 2), available on the CEPT website, with this information. The comments received were all resolved and as they were not controversial EFIS MG adopted and approved for publication the proposed revision of ECC Report 180 as well as the new ECC Report 05.
Various proposed radio interface specifications (RIS) models were also considered for:
- professional mobile radio 446 (PMR446) in the 446.0–446.2 MHz band (with respect to the new Decision ECC/DEC/(15)05);
- intelligent transport systems (ITS) in the 5875-5925 MHz band (with respect to the revision of Decision ECC/DEC/(08)01;
- ITS non-safety in the 5855-5875 MHz band (with respect to the revision of Recommendation ECC/DEC/(08)01);
- ultra wide band (UWB) LT2 in the 3.1-4.8 GHz band (with respect to the revision of Recommendation ECC/DEC/(11)09);
- non-geostationary satellite orbit/earth stations on mobile platforms (NGSO ESOMP) in the 17.3-20.2 GHz, 27.5-29.1 GHz and 29.5-30.0 GHz bands (with respect to the new Decision ECC (15)04);
- GSP ESOMP in the 17.3-20.2 GHz and 27.5-30.0 GHz bands (with respect to Decision ECC (13)01).
These proposals were reviewed by the group and will be submitted to the next WG FM meeting for (final) adoption and approval for publication in the EFIS portal.
