13 May 2011
13.05.2011
The National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications held yesterday the annual international conference entitled “Radio spectrum strategies – necessity, opportunity, involvement”, anevent closely related to the celebration, in 2011, of 20 years of radio spectrum management in Romania.
The conference, aimed at creating a framework for discussions on the allotment of the spectrum required for developing broadband mobile services, provided the participants with the opportunity to share their experiences, and thus the strategic streamlines Romania should follow in the elaboration of its radio spectrum strategy for the development of broadband mobile services were clearer identified and defined.
The speeches in the opening session were delivered by Mr. François Rancy, Director of the Radiocommunication Bureau of the ITU, Mr. Georg Serentschy, Vice-chairman of BEREC and Mr. Valerian Vreme, Romanian Minister of Communications and Information Society, who offered a global perspective on the conference theme, and showed that the allocation of spectrum is critical in view of ensuring its efficient use, the international harmonisation of its allocation is a necessity, whereas the greatest challenge is choosing the best technology at the respective moment.
The first roundtable gathered representatives of the regulatory authorities of Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Italy, who presented the status on the allocation of bands for BWA services in these countries. All the panellists of this session agreed that the spectrum allocation for these services should be done as soon as possible, in a transparent and organised manner.
The representatives of the undertakings with global operations invited to speak in the second session of the ANCOM conference stressed the need to ensure predictability and certainty as regards the spectrum allotment, and to coordinate the strategies in the countries where these operate. The representatives of Vodafone Group, Orange FT Group and Cosmote Group expressed their expectations, which concerned the extension of the right to use the already allotted frequencies, arguing that their investments were made on the long-run, and that, for the operators, the costs incurred by the refarming of the already used spectrum would be too high and prejudicing. On the other hand, the RCS & RDS representative expressed his interest in the 900 MHz band, deeming that the strategy for the development of the BWA services is a good opportunity for the even allotment between operators in this band.
Starting from the current trends visible at the European level, depicted in the previous sessions, the last roundtable of the conference offered a regional perspective on the licensing of the bands designated for BWA services. None of the countries in the region has licensed these frequency bands for BWA services thus far. Nevertheless, when it comes to the best modality for allotting these bands, most of these countries would turn to auction, whereas the principles and conditions for the allocation are yet to be established (e.g. restrictions as regards the maximum spectrum amount an operator may obtain, whether the 800MHz and 2600 MHz bands will be auctioned together or separately, the time when these bands will be auctioned etc.).
Further details on the conference, as well as the presentations delivered during this event are available on the dedicated webpage, here.
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