The purpose of this interim statement is to inform stakeholders that we will not make further decisions about the release of the band 872-876 MHz paired with 917-921 MHz (the 872/917 MHz band) until later in 2010.
This reflects our view that we should take account of work under way in Europe on the possibility of co-channel sharing between GSM-R, short-range devices (SRDs) and radio-frequency identification (RFID) before considering further the choice of authorisation approach for releasing the band. The relevance of this work is that it may open up the possibility of a hybrid authorisation approach that combines elements of the full licensing and light regulatory approaches to authorisation. This hybrid approach was not considered in our consultation document of 11 August 2009 on the way forward for the future use of the 872/917 MHz band.
The regulatory and technical work under way in the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC), the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is expected to be completed in the autumn. Our spectrum-awards homepage will be kept up to date to enable stakeholders to keep track of progress in CEPT/ECC and ETSI.
This interim statement also gives an overview of the responses that we received to our consultation. We would like to thank all the respondents for their comments and the information they provided. One of the principal objectives of the consultation was to gather evidence that would allow us to make a more informed decision on the relative merits of releasing the spectrum through a full licensing or light regulatory approach. In the event, we received limited information of this nature. Hence, we remain interested to hear from stakeholders who have additional information and analysis either on technical criteria or that could help to inform an assessment of the potential value that could be created through particular uses of the band.