Minutes of the sixth meeting of the 450-470 MHz Band Realignment Project Industry Working Group Held on 13th December 2000 at DTI, 10 Victoria Street, London

1. Welcome and Apologies

Apologies received from Keith Jones (Transco), Adrian Grilli (JRC), Mike Brookes (LPRA), Gerald David (Aerial Group), Mike Thilo (Radio Systems Ltd)

2. Minutes of the last meeting

Minutes of the meeting were accepted.

3. Matters arising

Stephen Limb reported that a replacement of his support staff is now being actively sought.

It was felt best to trial the questionnaire within the IWG, rather than at the RA roadshows.

The draft frequency migration plan has been transferred into MapInfo and is available for IWG members in that or bitmap format. The group recommended that the RA 'print to pdf' format by using Adobe PDF Writer.

The paper by Mike Brookes and David Priestley about whether the low power de-regulated band should be re-located as a part of the 450-470MHz realignment, or left where it is, is not yet available. It was understood that Mike has produced a paper, but it appears not to have been circulated. Keith Jones' paper is still outstanding.

4. Draft Questionnaire to users

Glenn Everett confirmed that an agreed set of questionnaires has now been produced. Certain groups have been withdrawn and will be contacted individually with a specific request for information:

Home Office
CAA Ground Movement
Railtrack Cab-Secure Radio

Railtrack's radio strategy for migration to GSM-R and use of Cab Secure Radio will dovetail in with the timescales of the realignment.

It was felt reasonable to assume that users have a simple base station if no reply to the questionnaire is forthcoming, thereby making it in users' interests to respond to the questionnaire so as to give them the opportunity to influence the band re-alignment process and plan. The questionnaire should permit an economic impact of the plan to be made.

It has yet to be decided whether to move on site paging currently located at 459MHz. It is widely used by hospitals, especially in Northern Ireland, and this should be considered in the decision making process. The JRC, along with other SMOs, were intending to send an appropriate guidance note with the questionnaire to their members in order to streamline the process and ensure that those all members of the respective SMOs are given to the opportunity to respond. This can occur, or the SMOs can provide a database in Microsoft Excel format of their members and the guidance note to the RA, who will send them out. These should be provided to Stephen Limb on or by the 12 January 2001.

It is intended that the responses to the questionnaire should provide the necessary detail to enable an appropriate implementation plan to be drawn up based upon the extent of the work needed and the time taken to re-align the band. Financial issues are still important. The questionnaire will stimulate the licensees to consider the implication of band realignment upon their services and business even if they don't actually respond.

The questionnaire will be circulated by the 16 February 2001. Responses would be required within four weeks of issue. SMOs can discuss directly with the RA the issue of separately sending the form and the guidance note to their members. Reminders may be sent if appropriate. The form will also be posted to the RA Internet site and may be posted to the SMOs' Internet sites as well. FAQ information will also be available, together with a contact email address.A telephone number was not felt appropriate.

The RA licensing system may be used to identify most individual licensees and their licence numbers.

The final version of the questionnaire will be re-circulated by the 22 December 2000 for approval. Comments to Stephen Limb by the 5 January 2001.

A press release will be issued indicating the issue of the questionnaire and that an 'electronic copy' is available on the RA Internet site. The formal timetable is as follows:

22 December 2000	Circulate final version of questionnaire.
5 January 2001	Comments of final version of the questionnaire.
12 January 2001	SMO database of licensees to RA.
12 January 2001	Issue press release (pre-released to periodicals)
16 February 2001	Issue questionnaire.
18 February 2001	Post questionnaire, FAQ and Q&A to RA Internet site.
16 March 2001	Questionnaire response date.
30 March 2001	Send reminder to non-respondents.

Question & Answers / FAQ for the questionnaire

A brainstorming sesion was held in which some questions and draft answers were identified. These will be developed further into a FAQ document to be posted on the website.

The questions identified were:

Which frequency will I be moving to?
Is it compulsory to move?
Why will I have to move frequencies?
Does it apply to me / everyone?
When I will be moving?
Why are we doing this?
Do I receive compensation?
Will I still receive the same service?
What do I do next?
Will I be able to keep my equipment?
Should I speak to my supplier?

5. Proposed frequency plan

Some of the basic constraints were presented:

CEPT Recommendation T/R 25-08 is referenced in the European Common Frequency Allocation table that is the basis of the realignment of 450-470 MHz.

Paging transmitters should be treated as base station transmit (460-470MHz).

Single frequency working, which may include base station, treated as mobile transmit (450-460MHz).

466.075MHz paging channel is already in base station transmit (460-470MHz).

454MHz Vodafone paging is expected to cease service before realignment commences.

It was noted that there is equipment being installed into NHS hospitals that cannot be re-aligned and which will have to be scrapped when their frequency is realigned

Moving the paging service may have significant financial implications to the viability of the service. The receivers currently on sale cannot economically be re-tuned; they would have to be replaced.

It was pointed out that many modern synthesised equipments still cannot be realigned over a distance of more than around 10MHz.

Typically, a month of dual frequency operation would be needed to change out a hospital. The main difficulty is that of ensuring that all the users exchange their pagers for the new device. It would cost about Ł20k per hospital.

It was agreed to seek to move scanning telemetry at an earlier stage.

It was noted that in designing the frequency plan, no consideration had been yet been given as to how its implementation would be resourced with manpower.

The economics of large systems presents particular problems - these should be tackled on a case by case basis.

Consideration needs to be given to the impact of new technology, mixed technology sharing of spectrum and the economic benefit of funding some services to move into new spectrum. These are services that will fail if they are required to fund their own migration.

Prospective figures for the migration of RAM Mobile Data and Siemens Datatrak will be provided. Action: Adrian Noad

Prospective figures for the migration of on-site and wide area (3-5km) paging services will be provided. Action: Paging Operators Association

6. Future workplan, including date of next meeting

Next meeting 6 March 2001.

7. AOB

The IWG voiced concern that the project is grossly under resourced and funded considering its scale.

SL explained the Treasury rules (the Green Book) as far as he knew them:

1. National efficiency test - what is the cost benefit of doing it.
2. Additionality - could the private sector not do it by itself?
3. Value for money -
4. Market failure - will the market fail if it is not funded.