On Wednesday 15 March, the European Parliament approved the inter-institutional compromise reached at the end of December with representatives from the Council of the EU and Commission on the reorganisation of the 700 MHz band (694-790 MHz).
The final Parliament vote was 614 votes in favour, 44 against and 28 abstentions. The rapporteur, Patrizia Toia (S&D, IT), explained, “We come up with uniform criteria for the access to this band, so that the high-speed universal connection is possible for both telecom operators and broadcasters.”
The draft text still needs to be formally ratified by the Council and suggests that
the 700 MHz band will be made available for wireless broadband by 2020 (see EUROPE 11690). Individual EU member states may extend the deadline for two years for “duly justified reasons”, such as: unresolved cross-border coordination issues, technical migration of a large amount of the population to advanced broadcasting standards, financial costs of transition exceeding the expected revenue, or force majeure.
The agreement calls on member states to publish their national plans and schedules before 30 June 2018 and sets out a deadline for the cross-border coordination agreements at the end of this year. The compromise also seeks to limit priority access to 2030 for band frequencies below the 700 MHz (470-694 MHz) from which audiovisual services are currently benefiting.
Europe is currently experiencing strong growth in demand for high-speed wireless services. This is mainly because of mobile video content consumption. This trend is expected to get stronger over the next few years and exert pressure on existing network capacity and demand for additional frequency bands. According to the Commission, almost eight times as much mobile Internet traffic is expected by 2020. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)