Europa publish Radio Spectrum report on 700MHz spectrum

Pascal Lamy has presented his report to the European Commission on the future of the UKF (700MHz spectrum).

In summary the report proposes: -

The 700 MHz band (694-790 MHz) is currently used for Digital Terrestrial Television broadcasts and Wireless microphones, this spectrum to be re-alloacted to wireless broadband by 2020 (with a +/- 2 year variance).

The spectrum below 700MHz (470-694 MHz) should be maintained for DTT broadcasts and should be given regulatory stability.

The Program Making and Special Events (PMSE) spectrum should be moved to the 800MHz band (823-832 MHz) and 1.8 GHz (1785-1805 MHz).

This will mean TV sets/etc will need a major retune in around 2018 to ensure reception and also new broadcast technologies (MPEG-4 and DVB-T2 - which is used by Freeview HD, but not all current sets/etc will support it).

It's likely PMSE will require new equipment (especially for radio microphones), but at least manufacturers have about 6 years to do this.