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« on: May 17, 2008, 01:20:28 AM » |
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The European Commission should back off in its attempt to have more say over how to allocate spectrum that has been freed up by the switch to digital television, a top EU lawmaker said last week.
EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding has proposed a more pan-European Union approach to managing freed up radio bands so they can be offered for bloc-wide mobile services. She also wants to introduce trading in some frequencies, but EU states are keen to keep national control over the lucrative resource and how it can be reused.
Catherine Trautmann, a French socialist steering the measure through the European Parliament, which has the final say with EU governments, said control of spectrum should remain with member states. “When it comes to spectrum, I hope the Commission will make constructive proposals without throwing out the baby with the bathwater,” Trautmann told the assembly’s industry committee. “The Commission has gone too far in complicating management of spectrum and the way it has claimed competence for itself in a way that interferes with national prerogative,” she said.
Broadcasters fear that with the switch to digital television, due to be completed around 2012 in the 27-nation EU, they will be forced to relinquish their analogue frequencies. Mobile phone companies scent new markets with the frequencies and would be willing to pay for them, helping to top up government coffers. “We have to ensure all broadcasting activities are considered separate from other services … that they have the right to use radio frequencies until that obligation expires,” Trautmann said.
Reding’s top official, Fabio Colasanti, acknowledged disagreement between Trautmann and the Commission over the issue. “Where it comes to frequencies submitted to different systems, we don’t think that is in the common interest and would be inflexible,” Colasanti said.
Source: Reuters via Media Network Weblog
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