Brussels, 07/04/2009 (Agence Europe) - After a meeting with Daniel Pataki, chair of the Hungarian telecoms regulatory authority and the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG), EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding highlighted the key role of the digital dividend on Tuesday 7 April 2009 for growth and competition on the European telecoms market, confirming her intention to publish guidelines on management of the radio spectrum.
“Coordinated European action on the digital dividend (Ed: the frequencies made available by changing from analogue to digital television) is indispensable, to harness the potential economic and social value and creating economies of scale for equipment and service providers,” explained Viviane Reding. To ensure that coherent decisions are taken in the various EU member states, “radio spectrum policy in Europe requires close cooperation between national regulators and the European Commission,” she added.
RSPG experts are preparing an opinion that will resume the views of national frequency regulators and feed into the European Commission's future proposals in this domain. Based on the RSPG opinion (to be published on 13 May 2009, according to Daniel Pataki) and research commissioned by the European Commission, a public consultation exercise will be launched by the Commission in July 2009 on the draft recommendations it hopes to adopt in the autumn, explained Reding. The Commission is planning to set out guidelines on how governments and industry should manage the new frequencies that will become available with the crossover to digital television (member states have pledged to achieve this by 2012). (A.B./transl.fl)