EU prepares to release GSM bandwidth for 3G

Rating: will we see the benefits?

By Annie Turner

The European Union’s executive arm has proposed opening radio frequencies allocated exclusively to GSM to other wireless technologies including 3G mobile data.

The mobile industry reckons the achieve cumulative cuts in capital expenditures of up to 40% in network costs over five years. “In the EU, we must remove regulatory barriers and facilitate the deployment of mobile communications by allowing new technologies to share spectrum with existing ones,” EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said.

Will we see a 40% reduction in our 3G bills though?

The proposal would abolish 20-year-old EU legislation that allocated the 900MHz to 1,800MHz frequencies to GSM. In a strategy for radio spectrum unveiled earlier this year, the Commission said it wanted frequencies not needed by mobile operators, or those freed up through the move to digital broadcasting, to be opened to other businesses.

The EU executive also wants to talk to member states about how spectrum allocation process could be made less restrictive.

Collectively, the industry using radio spectrum earned between EUR 240bn and EUR 260bn (USD 331.4bn to USD359.1bn) last year, the Commission estimated.

No doubt the mobile industry will use its considerable clout to move this along, in direct proportion to the opposition it put up against reduced roaming charges in Europe. Or more to the point, the way it scuppered British regulator Ofcom’s plans for ultra wideband (round 3.1 - 10.6GHz) spectrum as they might have faced competition from alternative technologies, god forbid.

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