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Different Classes of licence

Every licence issued by Ofcom will fall into a sector (e.g. 'Aeronautical' or 'Maritime'). The sector is in effect the type of service (at a high and very broad level) the licence is intended to be for. The type of service is then defined further to the licence class allocated (e.g. - within the Aeronautical sector - 'Aeronautical Ground Station (Air traffic control/ground movement control)' class and 'Aeronautical Ground Station (General Aviation)' class). At this stage the licence is still not personalised to the customer and is still generic in nature.

At the next level the licence is narrowed to the specifics of the customer's system. This is done through the use of a licence schedule. However there may be exceptions, see Unit manuals for reference.

All of these licences issued by Ofcom then fall into three different types of licence. These are:

• Pre-packaged - an 'off the shelf' licence that mostly requires no specific assignment or co-ordination. An example of this is a licence to use a CB radio.
• Customised - a licence that is 'hand crafted' to specific needs. This may involve an individual assignment and/or the need to be co-ordinated with other services to reduce the possibility of interference. Fixed links comes into this class.
• Spectrum - This authorises the use of a whole block of spectrum. Within the licence conditions the licensee can utilise the block, as they find most appropriate. This type of licence mainly affects the public networks area.

There are exceptions to the above descriptions - for example, certain pre-packaged licences require co-ordination. Another point to note is that the licence document will greatly vary in terms of size and detail depending on the type of licence needed.

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