One year on from the High Level Group, compromise on the UHF band looks as unlikely as ever

This is the latest phase in a process that began over a year ago when the former Commission vice president Neelie Kroes, keen to take hold of Europe’s spectrum agenda, convened a high level group (HLG) chaired by former WTO director-general Pascal Lamy to look at future strategy for the 470–790 MHz band. The study was to include a discussion of how the next generation of audiovisual content would be distributed.

Brussels also commissioned studies of convergence between mobile broadband and digital terrestrial television (DTT) and between the mobile and critical communications sectors. Clearly, the Commission believed the broadcasting industry’s spectrum rights in the UHF band needed to be reviewed.

Despite the Commission’s hopes that consensus could be found, this was too much even for Lamy’s negotiation skills. In September last year, he issued the HLG’s report, signed off by him alone, advocating a “2020-2030-2025” formula: the 700 MHz band assigned for mobile in 2020, the DTT platform maintained until 2030 and the entire issue revisited by 2025.

Forces against the status quo in the band include the increasing viability of various alternatives to DTT in some parts of Europe. In its favour, consultants hired by the Commission have argued that DTT is far more efficient at broadcasting content than current and emerging mobile technologies (a similar argument has been made for critical communications).

As for Lamy’s report, it has been approved by the RSPG, the inter-governmental group that advises the Commission, and praised by Kroes’s successors in Brussels.

Despite this, statements from the mobile and broadcasting sectors issued as the consultation concluded suggest that neither side has changed its position. On the mobile side, the GSMA wants to see a co-primary allocation of the entire UHF band to leave as many spectrum options open as possible for the industry in developing its strategy, and for regulators in deciding how to regulate audiovisual content.

On the opposite side, the EBU argues that the DTT platform is indispensable for the continent’s creative industries and plays an essential role in European democracy.

Neither side seems willing to give an inch in the run-up to WRC-15. Perhaps that will change once the outcomes of that conference are known.

Toby Youell, PolicyTracker

16/3/2015