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Europe Agrees Plan to Harmonise Superfast 4G Mobile Broadband Spectrum

Posted: 01st Nov, 2011 By: MarkJ
europe map digital agendauk lte 3g 4g ofcom mobile broadbandThe EU Council of Ministers has given its official approval to a new Radio Spectrum Policy Programme, which is designed to boost economic growth and stimulate uptake of 800MHz based superfast (4G) Mobile Broadband services through wireless radio spectrum harmonisation by 1st January 2013.

The 800MHz frequency band (790-862MHz) is currently being used for old analogue television (TV) services, although the last one of these in the UK will finally be switched off on October 24th 2012 in order to make way for a new generation of superfast/4G Mobile Broadband services using the same band.

800MHz is highly prized because its lower frequency allows it to cover a wider area and penetrate further into homes. It will also make use of the next generation mobile technology known as Long Term Evolution ( LTE ), which will eventually deliver peak / shared download speeds that push beyond 1Gbps (Gigabits per second).

EU Rapporteur, Gunnar Hökmark (EPP, SE), said:

"This week's political agreement on the first Radio Spectrum Policy Programme will pave the way for the EU to take the global lead regarding new services and competitiveness. This will be possible thanks to higher broadband speeds, mobility, coverage and capacity. I am glad that Parliament's ambitious approach has been endorsed by the Member States."

As it stands, Europe wants to make the 800MHz frequency band available (i.e. free up) for wireless broadband services by 1st January 2013. Elsewhere it also plans to allocate at least 1200MHz of spectrum to mobile data traffic after 2013 but before 2015.

The European Commission (EC) has also been asked to assess, no later than 1st January 2015, whether there is a need to harmonise additional spectrum bands in order to manage the exponential growth in wireless data traffic.

The Council will also investigate whether any other spectrum between 400MHz and 6GHz could be repurposed and or made more efficient so that some of it could be freed for similar wireless data services. The informal compromise plan still needs to be backed by the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (IREC) on 10th November and later by Parliament as a whole.

Meanwhile the UK communications regulator , Ofcom , recently confirmed that its own auction of re-farmed radio spectrum (800MHz and 2.6GHz) had been significantly delayed (here) from Q1-2012 to Q4-2012 because of legal and technical problems. But Ofcom still expects the first superfast Mobile Broadband services to surface between the end of 2013 and early 2014.
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