business radio reform trading, liberalisation and simplification

©Ofcom

Business Radio Reform Trading, Liberalisation and Simplification

22 November 2007 Paul Jarvis

Business Radio 07

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Agenda

1. Business Radio Reform 2. Benefits/vision of the new approach

3. Other Business Radio projects

4. 2012 Olympics

5. Questions/Discussion

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Where we are

So far…

Trading

Introduced at end of 2004 to c900 licences

BR: National and Regional PMR, Analogue PAMR, National Paging, Data Networks and CBS

Around 20-30 trades per annum – 12 larger licences have changed hands through trading

Liberalisation

Progressive removal of restrictions on technology and usage

BR: Ability to change between classes

Coming up…

Trading

Extension of trading to other licence classes (including licences in UHF1)

35,000 licences to be fully tradable

Introduction of geographical and spectrum partitioning to national licence types

Simplification and Liberalisation

Introduction of 3 new and flexible licence types (Area Defined, Technically Assigned and Light Licence)

Minimum technical conditions to prevent harmful interference

New transparent fee structures

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Getting there – key work items

IT System Major development of a new IT platform (Unify) including development of an advanced new licensing and spectrum management system. BRR highly dependent on the delivery of the new system

Regulations Consultation and statement on the Trading, Register and Fee Regulations to give legal effect of the policy changes

Variation Process to move over 50,000 licences to the new licence classes

Data cleansing Interaction with customers to correct/update technical data

Documentation Revision and development of documents to support the changes

Communication Keeping our stakeholders updated on the progress and time scale

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Indicative approach for BRR

Go Live

Consultation on draft regulations

Statement with final regulations

Regulations come into forceRegulations

VariationIssue variation notices

(minimum 1 month to make any representations)Issue

New Licences

10 weeks consultation

21days

3-4 weeks for reviewing the responses and

statement

IS Design / testing / UAT

Late 2008

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Project UNIFY: What is it ?

• Ofcom inherited around 70 systems from the legacy regulators from which it was formed. Not conducive to efficiency or coherence!

• Project Unify was launched in 2005 to integrate these disparate systems

• Project encompasses all of Ofcom’s activities – so not only WT Act Licensing but field operations, finance, human resources, project management and the Ofcom licensing centre

• Unify has already delivered improved efficiency and reduced costs across Ofcom

• Next phase is for Fixed Links which will be delivered early 2008 followed by Business Radio (late 2008)

• Demonstration of the Business Radio part of the Spectrum Management System will be given as part of the workshops later today

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BR new licensing system

SPECTRA web

SPECTRA emc

SPECTRA plus

CHIRplus_LM

SPECTRA plan

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Agenda

1. Business Radio Reform 2. Benefits/vision of the new approach

3. Other Business Radio projects

4. 2012 Olympics


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Benefits of the new approach to industry

• Trading and spectrum sharing

• Users have choice of technology within licence technical conditions

• Increased opportunities for suppliers/dealers to provide new services, including:

– system deployment and planning under the Area Defined licence

– greater use and coordination of Light licence classes

– providing guidance on licence fees, including technical mitigation to achieve lower fees

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Business Radio spectrum available and spectrum used

• The chart on the left shows the spectrum used by licence classes - approximately 60 MHz

• The chart on the right show the percentages of un-allocated spectrum by bands

– Band III (Sub band 1 & 2 not included due to band migration plan)– Low band: 141 dual frequency and 17 single frequency – all 12.5 KHz channel spacing– Mid band: 11 single frequency – 2 are 12.5 kHz and 9 are 25 KHz channel spacing– UHF 1: 7 dual frequency and 26 simplex – all 12.5 KHz channel spacing– UHF 2: 33 dual frequency (all 12.5 kHz) and 14 single frequency (12 are 25 KHz channel spacing and 2 are 12.5 kHz)

• New pricing approach provide an incentive to use the lower frequency ranges

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Agenda

1. Business Radio Reform 2. Benefits/vision on the new approach

3. Other projects within the Business Radio Unit

4. 2012 Olympics


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Other BR projects

UHF 2: 450-470 MHz Study to review the configuration of the band in the UK - Mott MacDonald & ATDI

Proposed completion date of end January 2008

Band III Band III Transition Plan is on schedule Sub-band 2 - Incoming / outgoing interference working levels could not

be negotiated because the final use of the band by France is uncertain

E & PSS reform Reform of E&PSS spectrum management to reflect the Government’s acceptance of the Independent Audit’s recommendations

PSSPG completed the high level assessment and the recommendations have now been approved by UKSSC

PSSPG to progress on the recommendation to produce a detailed design plan

Monitoring / transport systems

Airport trunk radio system Railway onsite/back to back systems Interference to Wembley Stadium

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Further Information

If there any questions regarding these changes, please contact:

[email protected]

Further information is available on the Ofcom website at:

www.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomms/ifi/licensing/classes/business_radio/

Any other enquiries regarding existing licences should be addressed to

[email protected]

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London Olympics 2012

• Discussion document on spectrum requirements for the Olympics to be published end of November 07

• Document includes a request for views on:– the amount of spectrum needed for PMR during the Games– our approach to fulfilling this requirement

• Some requests for PMR spectrum for use during the Games will need to be coordinated with LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games)

• Spectrum for use in preparing for the Games (e.g. construction projects etc) can be acquired in the normal way

business radio reform trading, liberalisation and simplification

Documents