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back to article Steelie Neelie: Enjoy your EXCLUSIVE UHF spectrum in 2020, mobile operators

Europe’s digital chief presented a report on Monday that sets out a plan to redistribute access to the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum band. Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that there were obviously differences of opinion on who should have most access, but she said Europe cannot ignore the needs of the …

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  1. FuzzyTheBear
    Megaphone

    Give it all to us ..

    There's other services on the airwaves that have just as much right to the spectrum as boyos who use cellphones. Unfortunately the consumer , like usual , gets the shaft. Every type of broadcast is threatened by them .FM radio , hey that takes bandwidth , axe it .. tv ? who cares , axe that too , billions of tv sets ? hey .. consumers just have to throw them away and the manufs will be happy .. who pays ? us .. What they do ? profit from it .. So .. when they talk taking away the bandwidth of more services and tv i got the tendency to tell them : you had your share , sit on it , there's a public out there with tens of bilions in receiving equipment that have rights too.

    4 3 Reply
    1. Mike Pellatt
      Reply Icon

      Re: Give it all to us ..

      Just a little bit of grist for the UKIP mill - but isn't the ITU the forum for spectrum allocation - current regulations being here: http://www.itu.int/pub/R-REG-RR-2012 ? Europe being part of Region 1.

      When did the Commissioner decide she'd taken over responsibility for this ?

      5 0 Reply
      1. Nigel Whitfield.
        Reply Icon

        Re: Give it all to us ..

        She doesn't have overall responsibility ; as you say, it's an ITU decision, at WRC-15. However, there are a lot of different groups that have an input into that, including also the EBU, for instance, which largely represents the public service broadcasters in Europe.

        Here in the UK, for instance, things are delegated to Ofcom, hence their consultation to which responses can be submitted until the 19th of this month; I wrote about that in Breaking Fad:

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/30/breaking_fad_uhd_video_on_terrestrial_tv_crunch_time_for_freeview/

        0 0 Reply
    2. Tom 35
      Reply Icon

      Re: Give it all to us ..

      Kill broadcast TV Win, Win.

      With cable/sat TV and cell phone providers often owned by the same people it's a double win to get people off broadcast TV, not only do they get more mobile space, they get more pay TV too.

      I expect the brown envelopes are flying.

      5 0 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      I may be wrong

      But I have an analogue portable Sony TV that could be used throughout Europe pre digital era and I am sure it could pick up UHF as well as VHF.

      I wouldn't mind so much if the new digital standard could be guaranteed for the next ten years but every few months something new is added so there is a constant push to upgrade.

      3 0 Reply
    4. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Pirate

      Re: Give it all to us ..

      Well, yes, in the short term, you have a point.

      But all the services you refer to are just data, is the bottom line. So in the long term, it's *way* more efficient to dedicate as much frequency space as possible to providing data services, and then sending the audio/visual stuff as data. One data connection can cover all the FM radio, TV channels, point-to-point voice, and other services that you want.

      Sure, the transition needs handling carefully. But to hold up the whole thing because of some notion that a handful of 50-year-old TV sets must have suitable free-to-air transmissions is not a good reason to not do it.

      GJC

      1 1 Reply
  2. Christian Berger

    And that...

    ...in probably the only European country where terrestrial television actually works as a whole.

    0 1 Reply
  3. i like crisps
    WTF?

    NOW JUST WAIT A COTTON PICKIN MINUTE

    Does this mean that i'm going to have to get ANOTHER 'Freeview' box?....bastARDS!!!

    2 0 Reply
    1. Refugee from Windows
      Reply Icon

      Re: NOW JUST WAIT A COTTON PICKIN MINUTE

      We'll be back to just enough bandwidth for 5 channels, from only main transmitters, so back to square one?

      3 0 Reply
  4. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Terminator

    Embrace Sky

    Resistance is useless.

    1 0 Reply
  5. jonfr

    What about stop using GSM?

    What about killing something like GSM, a outdated technology by any standard today. It uses 900/1800Mhz.

    Mobile doesn't need anything from 700Mhz and up to 2600Mhz (with gaps in it). They already have huge amount of spectrum to use. In fact, this is what they got already.

    800Mhz (LTE)

    900Mhz (GSM/3G)

    1800Mhz (GSM/LTE)

    2100Mhz (3G/LTE)

    2600Mhz (LTE)

    I think that would be enough for everyone if controlled in reasonable manner.

    2 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What about stop using GSM?

      So your country is entirely covered by LTE, hardly anyone uses non-LTE capable devices and there are few if any remote telemetry devices using GSM for monitoring pipelines, electrical, roads and other utility or public infrastructure?

      Congratulations for having a working time machine and posting from 2022. Please tell us, is global warming having a real effect yet, and have any of the monthly reports of better solar panels or better batteries actually been commercialized yet or is everyone still waiting?

      3 0 Reply
    2. Rampant Spaniel
      Reply Icon

      Re: What about stop using GSM?

      Much of the older 2g and 3g spectrum will be re purposed in time. Some basic 2g voice will likely remain for a significant amount of time but the majority of spectrum gains will come from 3g spectrum. I believe some kit can even run slices of gsm inside a lte channel and turn it on and off as needed for legacy voice support. This will likely need license changes and it may have to wait until licenses are resold. In the meantime huge gains will come from running 8x8 setups as Sprint in the US is starting to do. I also believe we will see feature creep from 5g down into a kind of 4.5g service so there will be a lot of headroom in getting more from the current spectrum. It just takes time and money to roll out and to get tech into handsets.

      0 0 Reply
  6. David Pearce

    Many countries are still pure analog tv transmission, up to 790MHz and will realistically still have it in use up to and maybe beyond 2020

    0 0 Reply
  7. ManFromOz

    not just data and TV stations...

    There are hundreds of thousands of other users currently operating equipment in the 520-694MHz band - as that is where pretty much every wireless microphone operates.

    Everything from large theatre shows and broadcast events run by professionals to the mic behind the bar at the pub used for quiz night.

    Sharing spectrum with TV broadcasts which are on spot frequencies which don't change, with plenty of space around them, works just fine given that wireless mics are low-power devices often used indoors. However, you can't share spectrum with mobile data services which frequency hop all of the spectrum, and might be very close to the mic receiver.

    Wireless mics are a mainstay of the entertainment industry, which a big industry, yet somehow in these discussions their needs get left out...

    1 0 Reply

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