EU Frees Up Radio Spectrum for Newer, Faster Mobile Services
July 28, 2009 // Published as a news service by IHS
The European Council of Ministers approved a proposal from the European Commission (EC) to modernize European legislation on the use of the radio spectrum needed for mobile services.
The July 27 vote to update the so-called GSM Directive followed approval from the European Parliament and marks an important step towards a new generation of mobile services for Europe.
The European Union (EU) GSM Directive of 1987 reserved the use of part of the 900-MHz spectrum band to GSM (Global System for Mobile or, originally, Groupe Spécial Mobile) access technologies, such as mobile phones.
The updated directive, which enters into force this October, allows the 900-MHz frequency band to be used to provide faster, pan-European services, such as mobile Internet, while ensuring the continuation of GSM services. The new rules also make it easier to allow even newer fourth-generation high-speed broadband technologies to be deployed.
According to the EC, this new flexibility will foster stronger competition in Europe's telecoms market and contribute to a more rapid and widespread roll-out of wireless broadband services, thanks to reductions in network costs resulting from the use of lower frequency bands. This can lead to telecoms industry savings of up to €1.6 billion in capital costs for the provision of a single Europe-wide network.
The EC proposed the reform of the GSM Directive in parallel with the reform of the EU's telecoms rules. The updated GSM Directive is the first of several important directives in the telecoms sector being negotiated where the agreement of the European Parliament and European Council now pave the way for a stronger wireless economy.
"The GSM standard has been a success story for Europe, where it was born. By updating the GSM Directive, the EU has paved the way for a new generation of services and technologies where Europe can be a world leader," said EC Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding.
"I would like to thank the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers for making this possible by swiftly agreeing to the reform of this very important piece of telecoms legislation. This reform will remove constraints on operators so that they can deploy new technologies in the GSM bands to develop high-speed mobile broadband services. This should give a welcome boost to Europe's wireless economy and help trigger the take-off of a Digital Europe," Reding added.
In November 2008, the EC proposed to share the airwaves allocated to mobile phones with other more advanced technologies, starting with 3G mobile broadband technology (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, or UMTS). The proposal was approved by the European Parliament in May (see MEMO/09/219).
Consumers' existing handsets will continue to work without problems, but they can also use new technologies to access high-speed broadband services.
Background
The 1987 GSM Directive allocated certain radio frequencies (in the 900-MHz band) to GSM services. However, the directive needed to be brought up to date to allow more advanced, next-generation wireless technologies to also use this band of the radio spectrum.
In November 2008, the EC responded to the increasing pace of technological change by proposing to modify the directive in order to allow new technologies to co-exist with GSM in the 900-MHz frequencies. The 900-MHz band will be opened to other systems once the technical possibility of co-existence with GSM has been established. This will start with UMTS, which has already been shown to be compatible.
In her speech on "Digital Europe's Fast Track to Economic Recovery" of July 9 (see SPEECH/09/336), Reding presented a digital agenda for Europe that included, as one of the first action items, a swift agreement on the reform of the GSM Directive.
Next Steps
The updated directive will be signed by the presidents of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers in September and then published in the EU's Official Journal.
At the same time, the EC will adopt a decision, which will enter into force on the same day as the updated directive, setting out the technical measures allowing for the co-existence of GSM (2G mobile phones) and UMTS systems (3G phones that add high-speed mobile internet to regular phone services) on GSM frequencies in line with the directive.
This decision will be based on EU's radio spectrum decision that sets up a mechanism for the adoption of technical harmonization rules based on input received from national radio frequency experts.
It foresees the possibility of amendments to include technical usage parameters for further non-GSM systems for which compatibility may be established at a later stage.
National administrations will then have six months to transpose the directive and to implement the decision so that the GSM spectrum bands are effectively made available for 3G.
Source: European Commission (EC).