New
Silver Award Scheme
Reacting
to the Agency’s concerns over poorly installed mobile communications
equipment, the Radiocommunications Quality Council (RQC) has launched the
Silver Award Scheme to recognise best practice and professional in-vehicle
installation standards.
From
left: Anton Matthews, Stewart Gent, Alan Hudson and Mike Rawlings.
Membership
of the scheme is open to all companies that install in-vehicle mobile
communications, and to dealers who employ such installers.
The
UK mobile communications trade body, the Federation of Communication Services
(FCS), will administer the scheme on behalf of its membership and the
installation industry in general.
If
an installation company demonstrates that it adheres to the recently revised
Installers'Code of Practice (MPT 1362), and commits to provide professional
installation services to its customers, it will be given a Silver Award
Scheme Certificate with which to increase customer confidence.
According to FCS Chief Executive Jacqui Brookes, "The Silver Award
Scheme is being operated on behalf of the RQC, and continues the FCS tradition
of helping the mobile communications industry through self-regulation.
It will also boost consumer confidence at a time when the Government is
seeking to outlaw the use of hand-held mobile
phones while driving, but not the use of correctly installed, hands-free
communications systems."
The scheme's manager, Anton Matthews, joined
FCS Director Alan Hudson to award the first Silver Award Scheme Certificates
at the "PMR – The Future" event in November 2002. The
recipients were Stewart Gent, on behalf of The Chameleon Group, and Mike
Rawlings, of London Communications PLC.
For more information about the Silver Award Scheme,
please email Anton Matthews at silveraward@fcs.org.uk
PBR
suppliers at Large Events
If
you hold a Suppliers' licence, remember that the Agency has designated
a number of events around the UK as "Large Events" – i.e.
events where there is extensive use of radio at the same location.
Before
hiring, parking and/or demonstrating PMR and/or radio paging equipment
at a Large Event, you must seek special arrangements from the Agency’s
local licensing centre responsible for the event’s location. This
will enable frequencies and call signs to be co-ordinated.
The following
are currently classified as Large Events:
| Large
Event |
Local
licensing centre |
|
Formula
1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone
Events
at the Birmingham NEC
Wimbledon
Lawn Tennis Championships
|
Birmingham
office
Birmingham
office
Whyteleafe office
|
Our "Licensing
Procedures Manual for Private Business Systems” will be updated
to include the above list. Please consult the manual on our website
(www.radio.gov.uk, under "Publications”/”Licensing
Procedures Manuals”) if you wish to clarify whether an event
is a Large Event.
Lifting
the restrictions
 |
Published
in March last year, Professor Martin Cave’s Radio Spectrum Management
Review advocated the use of market mechanisms to manage spectrum –
but it went further than that. One of Professor Cave’s recommendations
to Ministers was that the Agency "should aim to minimise licence
conditions to those necessary for efficient spectrum use. Existing
licences should be amended to remove restrictions which are not needed
for reasons of international co-ordination or interference management,
and new licences should be issued with the minimum number of restrictions
possible." |
Professor
Cave’s endorsement of a "lighter regulatory licensing environment”
for PMR coincided with developments within the European Union for a simplified,
harmonised regime for authorising spectrum frequency assignments. This
new regime – which will, however, still allow the use of technical
and operational conditions necessary to avoid harmful interference –
is being introduced through the Authorisation
Directive (Directive 2002/20/EC), due to be incorporated into UK law in
July this year.
As a result, the Agency’s Private Business Systems Unit is taking
a critical look at the conditions contained in the current range of PBR
licences, to decide which conditions can be discarded without adversely
affecting other users. This will be a large task as there is a wide variety
of licence types to consider, from the PBR UK General Licence to the PBR
Wide Area (Speech and Data) licence.
A range of licence conditions is under review, from the use of talkthrough
and telephone interconnect facilities for on-site services to single-frequency
working on dual-frequency, wide-area assignments.
Licensees will be informed of any change to their licence conditions etc.
– by letter, through the reissue of their licence documents or through
other official communication processes. The new documents will clearly
highlight the changes. Remember that the process aims "to minimise
licence conditions to those necessary for efficient spectrum use"
– so nobody should find that the changes to their licence are detrimental
to their business requirements.
As a reader of PBR News, you probably hold a PBR licence (or your organisation
does). This issue therefore affects you. If you have any comments on this
matter or would like further information, please contact:
Steven Gleeson
Private Business Systems Unit
Radiocommunications Agency
Wyndham House
189 Marsh Wall
London E14 9SX
Email: Steven.gleeson@ra.gsi.gov.uk
Land
Mobile Radio Licensing and Channel Statistics Report 2003
|
With
the constantly growing demand for the finite resource that is the
radio spectrum, the Agency has made a commitment to publish detailed
statistics on spectrum use in the land mobile radio bands.
The 2003 report provides information on licensed
PBR services as at 31 December 2002, and the numbers of radios operating
under these licences. It includes comparison statistics going back
over four years.
The report is split into two sections:
"PBR Licence Statistics" provides a breakdown of licensing data by various categories of licence
and business use. Additional data show the number of PBR frequency
assignments and mobiles in each of the land mobile radio bands.
"Land Mobile Spectrum" provides details of the spectrum available to PBR services in the
land mobile radio bands, and how it is used. This section also provides
similar information about Public Access Mobile Radio, common base
stations, national public data operator services, radio paging (standard),
local communications, Short Range Business Radio and Wide Area Paging.
The report is available free of charge on the Agency website and
from our Library – see opposite.
|
 |
Useful
Agency contact numbers
| RA
Enquiry Point |
Tel:
020 7211 0211 |
Fax:
020 7211 0507 |
| Paging |
Tel: 020
7211 0200 |
Fax: 020
7211 0118 |
| PMR446/Short
Range Business Radio |
Tel: 020
7211 0201/0199 |
Fax: 020
7211 0118 |
| Customer
Account Queries |
Tel: 020
7211 0206 |
Fax: 020
7211 0419 |
| PBR
Newsletter |
Tel: 020
7211 0187 |
Fax: 020
7211 0118 |
| RA
Library |
Tel: 020
7211 0505/0502 |
|
| Private
Business Radio |
Tel:
Contact your local Agency offices |
| PBR Suppliers
Licence |
Tel:
Contact your local Agency offices |
All our
information sheets – including RA
206, which provides details of the Agency’s local offices –
are available from our Library (email library@ra.gsi.gov.uk)
and can also be found on the Agency website.
