ITIF Recommends Centralized Spectrum Management as Europe Moves to DSM
The EU needs to consolidate and manage spectrum through a single entity with the aim of "harmonizing band allocations, service rules, and regulations as much as possible" if it hopes to create a seamless mobile market in its transition to…
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a digital single market (see 1505060038), said an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report Monday. “Despite being a world leader in mobile communications in the 3G era, Europe has since lagged the United States in deploying high-speed, data-intensive LTE technology," said ITIF President Robert Atkinson in a news release. "To recapture lost economic ground, Europe needs a bold new approach that vests significantly more control over spectrum policy in the European Commission." The EU's "28 different sets of regulations and 28 separate spectrum markets is fragmentation in the extreme," said ITIF telecom policy analyst Doug Brake, the report's author, in the release. He said the EU should look to the U.S., where states are precluded from developing wireless policy, because a single mobile market will be a "boon" to consumers and businesses in the 5G era. Other ITIF report recommendations include: permitting more consolidation in the mobile industry, or competition among four to six major firms to gain economies of scale; reallocating spectrum for mobile broadband use; encouraging the use of tradeable technology-neutral and flexible licenses "to allow room for change"; and adopting a neutral spectrum policy rather than "market shaping" to drive more innovation, capital investment and cost benefits.