3.1 Enforcement and prosecutions
Many essential services depend on good radiocommunications, and a clean radio spectrum is integral to the Government's agenda for Broadband Britain. Agency staff play a key role in policing the civil radio spectrum, and the Agency is resolute in enforcing the law where this is in the interest of authorised radio users.

Underlining the importance of our enforcement work, the Communications Bill contains provisions that, if enacted, will make the more serious offences we investigate – pirate radio, hoax radio calls and deliberate interference – arrestable. At the same time, all other currently indictable offences contrary to section 1 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 will become summary only; this will reduce the burden on the courts.

Pirate radio operators in particular felt the strength of the Agency's resolution in 2002-03, with 56 convicted (compared with 29 in 2001-02) and equipment seized on 947 occasions. We also succeeded in cancelling fundraising events organised by pirate radio stations and terminating telephone and internet services used by them. During the year, electronic-tagging curfew sentences and Community Punishment Orders up to the maximum 240 hours were imposed on those convicted of pirate radio offences. Table 3 contains details of all prosecutions, cautions and warnings.

Staff at our local offices are trained in the requirements of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), and their associated Codes of Practice. In this context, we are seeking to ensure that we will have continued access to communications data in the course of our criminal investigations once Part I, Chapter II of RIPA comes into force.

Table 3: Prosecution cases concluded in the courts and warning letters issued 2002-03

Notes
1 Conditional discharges were handed down for the following periods and offences:

2 Three convictions in this category were for marketing cellphone- jamming devices; four were for R&TTE offences. Official cautions were for possessing and offering for sale restricted apparatus (video senders), operating a short-range device at excessive power, and R&TTE offences.

3.2 Helping business
The Agency prefers to work with customers to find solutions, and we use our enforcement powers only as a last resort.

3.3 Enforcement Concordat
The Agency has been a signatory to the Enforcement Concordat, a Government initiative to improve regulatory services to business, for four years. Working with business is at the heart of the Concordat; annual reviews of the Agency's performance show that our customers believe we act proportionately, explain why remedial work is necessary and allow a reasonable period for it to be completed.

3.4 Monitoring
Based at the monitoring station near Baldock in Hertfordshire, the Agency's monitoring section addresses national and international requirements to keep the spectrum clean and work it harder.

The section's primary aim is to contribute to spectrum management by offering spectrum monitoring services to the Agency and our external customers. It provides key monitoring evidence to underpin spectrum policy and assignment decisions, helps prevent undue interference where possible, and swiftly resolves cases of interference that do occur. Its work is split between on-site monitoring, field monitoring activities remote from Baldock, and strategic projects (see Section 14.1).

On-site monitoring
This comprises terrestrial and satellite monitoring facilities.

The Terrestrial Monitoring Unit (TMU) is staffed 24 hours a day and is the Agency's central point of contact for the emergency services outside normal working hours. This year 1,278 reports of interference were received from users, including the emergency services, in the UK and from other administrations worldwide; Table 4 breaks down these reports by topic. In every case, the target time set by Ministers for dealing with such cases was met or surpassed.

TMU is responsible for contacting the Agency's field staff in the Nations and Regions in cases of urgent interference to emergency services outside normal hours. Clearance requests for Transportable Earth Stations are now provided online by the e-Flatco system (see Section 1.8), but Baldock staff continue to offer a back-up service.

Baldock maintains satellite monitoring facilities to observe and measure the use of the geostationary arc by communications and broadcast satellites. The facilities comprise two fully steerable, large parabolic reflectors for use in the Ku and C bands and a smaller 1.8 m antenna for the L band. However, this year the monitoring section concluded its work within the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT), and the Memorandum of Understanding on satellite monitoring was signed. The agreement aims to rationalise and centralise such assets through shared use of the German Leeheim station, which will provide efficient and strategic satellite monitoring on a Europe-wide basis.

Table 4: Terrestrial monitoring activities

Field monitoring
This work, which covers spectrum monitoring and measurement at potentially any location in the UK, has two strands:

[	reactive interference investigation and EMC regulatory measurement in support of local offices or enforcement action; and
[	spectrum monitoring and measurement in support of the Agency's licensing sections.

Three field teams operate from Baldock using specialist mobile laboratories and calibrated test equipment, accredited to UK Accreditation Service (UKAS) standards. The laboratories can do complex measurement and interference work across the whole radio spectrum. Their many roles include supporting the Agency's field staff in technically complex interference cases – particularly in the higher frequency ranges, as they are equipped with measurement and monitoring equipment up to 110 GHz.

To support the Agency's spectrum management policymaking and licensing processes, the teams continue to survey and audit frequency bands at appropriate locations throughout the UK. During this year, they were active in support of our work on 2G, 3G, FWA, 28 GHz BFWA, Common Base Stations and CB.

Table 5: Field monitoring activities

3.5 Solving interference to domestic television and radio reception
Interference to television and radio reception can have many causes – for example, illegal radio use (by pirate radio stations etc) or faulty electrical equipment such as thermostats. The Agency can investigate these problems under its regulatory responsibilities. Interference may also arise if a television or radio installation lacks a suitable aerial or if the receiver lacks sufficient immunity to outside radio signals that, under ideal reception arrangements, should not cause interference.

Interference arising from deficient receiver installation should be dealt with by dealers, service engineers or aerial contractors. However, it can be difficult for householders to assess the cause of the interference; since the problem may be a regulatory matter, they can report the interference to the Agency for advice and, if necessary, on-site investigation and diagnosis. If we find that we can deal with the problem under our regulatory responsibilities, no charge is made – but if the problem is caused by deficiencies in the affected receiver, a charge of £50 is payable. This charge does not cover the full cost of our non-regulatory domestic interference work, which is funded by the BBC from television licence fee revenue; we have regular discussions with the BBC to ensure that this work is cost-effective. During 2002-03, 2,732 householders requested an investigation.

3.6 Mobile telephone base station audit
Following the publication in May 2000 of the report by the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (the Stewart Report), the Government asked the Agency to audit mobile telephone base stations. Our audit programme measures emissions from base stations to determine exposure levels. The guidelines used are the non-occupational maximum exposure levels set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).

In 2001, the audit covered 100 base stations located on school sites. In 2002 the focus was on base stations located near schools and hospitals. The audit covered 109 sites (82 schools and 27 hospitals); as in 2001, all showed emissions levels significantly below the guidelines (from 1/19,907,515 to 1/731 of the guideline levels). Details of all the audits are on the Agency's website.

Despite public fears about exposure to radiation emissions, the Agency's 2002 audit of 109 sites near mobile telephone base stations found emissions levels that in all cases were hundreds or even millions of times lower than the international guidelines

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