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Ofcom has received two reports on the international framework of spectrum management. These were commissioned by the Radiocommunications Agency as part of the Government's response to the independent review of radio spectrum management by Professor Martin Cave (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/ra/spectrum-review/index.htm).

Professor Cave made a series of recommendations on international aspects of spectrum management, including that there should be greater flexibility in the use of spectrum, that the costs and benefits of individual harmonisation and standardisation measures should be carefully assessed and that harmonisation should be time-limited and subject to periodic review in order to avoid locking spectrum in to applications that are not commercially successful. The studies were commissioned to examine these issues in greater depth.

• The National Autonomy Study by Quotient Associates and ATDI considers the technical constraints imposed on national spectrum policy by international obligations. It concludes that there is significant scope for national autonomous use of spectrum in the UK although this may be subject to technical and operating constraints that depend on the characteristics of the service and the frequency band used.
• The Costs and Benefits of Relaxing International Frequency Harmonisation and Radio Standards by Indepen and Aegis Systems examines the costs and benefits of international frequency harmonisation and technical standardisation. It confirms that harmonisation and standardisation can have advantages in some circumstances. However, there may be scope for a more selective and flexible approach to ensure that spectrum is used optimally, particularly to avoid the situation where a harmonised service is commercially unsuccessful and spectrum cannot then be used for other applications.

Both reports stress that that it is difficult to generalise and that each case needs to be assessed individually, although it is possible to draw some broad conclusions.

Next steps

Ofcom is publishing the consultants' work as a contribution to ongoing debate. It should be emphasised that the various scenarios in the reports about alternative uses for certain frequency bands are hypothetical. They should not be understood as indicating Ofcom's thinking on particular aspects of future spectrum policy, decisions on which will be based on a broad range of relevant considerations.

Ofcom is studying the reports and will take their conclusions into account in international discussions on harmonisation and standardisation with the aim of making more optimal use of the spectrum. While we are not formally consulting on the studies, we would welcome comments. These may be emailed to laurence.green@ofcom.org.uk.

Hard copies or higher resolution versions of the documents are available from Laurence Green.

• National Autonomy in the use of Spectrum in the UK: Report by Quotient Associates and ATDI
• Costs and Benefits of Relaxing International Frequency Harmonisation and Radio Standards: Report by Indepen and Aegis Systems

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