Spectrum Harmonization Said Needed ASAP for New Services

The Council of Ministers agreed last week to keep the review package together, but the measure is headed toward conciliation with the Parliament on the sole issue of suspending Internet infringers, said MEP Catherine Trautmann, one of the official reporters for the telecom review. Many governments are uncomfortable with a provision to ban Internet access termination without a court order, Trautmann said, adding she hopes that cooler heads will prevail.

The council will set up a conciliation committee in mid- September, and talks are expected that month and in mid- November, Trautmann said. The sides seem willing to preserve the 99 percent of language agreed to, including about spectrum, she said. Reopening other provisions wouldn’t be productive, she said. Trautmann said she’s worried that some governments consider conciliation a way to sink the whole package.

Parliamentary election campaigning showed that the Internet has become the number-one battleground for political discussion, said Leif Zetterberg, state secretary to the communications minister in the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication. Electronic communications are already important and their potential is huge, he said. All citizens must have access to the new services, Zetterberg said. Policymakers can help the transformation by harmonizing their approach to spectrum allocation to give users easy access and to spur innovation, he said. Priorities for the Swedish presidency, which takes office July 1, include making use of spectrum freed by the digital switchover, launching debate on a common European information and communication technology policy for the future and wrapping up the telecom package, Zetterberg said.

Harmonization proved a red flag during discussion of the telecom package, Trautmann said. Every time Parliament mentioned the need for EU states to take a more coordinated approach to spectrum and to give better public or commercial value to the resource, governments rejected the idea, she said. A major issue was who decides how to harmonize spectrum, Trautmann said: The European Commission, parliament or markets. Governments want the EC to decide, with their input, she said. Lawmakers tried to resolve the problem but weren’t forceful enough to overcome government resistance, she said.

Taking a user-oriented approach could solve the problem, Zetterberg said. A great deal of money is involved in spectrum, and highlighting connections between the airwaves and climate change and the economy might convince people that spectrum isn’t just a technical or political matter, he said.

The new Parliament won’t take a different stand on spectrum issues from the outgoing one, Trautmann said. The “Three Musketeers” who shepherded the telecom package -- Trautmann, Malcolm Harbour and Pilar del Castillo -- are returning, she said. The package passed Parliament with a strong majority, and with the telecommunications sector key to recovery from the economic downturn, no one thinks the deal will collapse because of the Internet disconnection issue, she said.

The most important spectrum-management change introduced in the telecom review was a decision for the Parliament and council to craft a strategy document every five years, said Fabio Colasanti, director general of the EC Information Society Directorate. The agreement can be viewed as “spectrum policy coming out of the closet” of technical decisions made at the national level and as a recognition of the growing importance of spectrum, he said.

The EC will develop a strategic program even if the telecom package fails, Colasanti said. There will be a formal proposal early next year and a final agreement at the end of 2010, Colasanti said. It will reflect work begun on the digital dividend and include a decision on what to do with the freed-up 800 MHz spectrum, he said. The program will also include preparatory work for the 2012 World Radio Conference, he said. The conference continues Wednesday.