Draft ECC Report 132 "On Light Licensing, License Exemption and Commons"

Source - http://194.182.137.12/19922523-F0F0-4DB5-BC30-D04ACAE16EBE

The consultation on this report ended last April. The responses have not been posted online so we can't know if the draft report will be modified in light of the comments received. There are small grammatical errors throughout the report, so it is certainly not yet final. But if it is approved in anything like the current draft form, it will be an important milestone in the evolution of radio policy, not just in Europe but globally.

The ECC started from the observation that different regulators interpret phrases like "light licensing" and "spectrum commons" in different ways, which can lead to misunderstanding and uncertainty about whether harmonization has in fact been achieved.

So Report 132 is an attempt to identify differences of interpretation and practice in authorizing uses of radio, and to push toward consensus on vocabulary and the underlying principles. That sounds like it might only interest a few specialists. But the conclusions the ECC reaches are profound.

First, they note that the distinction between "licensed" and "unlicensed" is blurring as regulators create new authorization classes like "light licensing," "registered links," "recognized spectrum rights" for passive services, etc. They try to organize these intermediate classes, with limited success.

On the other hand, their analysis lets them state the EU's approach to spectrum management much more precisely - proving that the EU embraces Open Spectrum:

"...radio applications that do not need individual frequency planning and coordination (or individual frequency assignment) should basically be exempted from individual licensing and should be subject to a general authorisation...

"In case of radio transmitters that are, due to their technical and/or operational characteristics, unlikely to cause harmful interference when deployed and used, individual licensing may present an unnecessary overhead and a licence-exempt model may be more appropriate...

"...administrations shall aim in general to specify 'minimum regulations'."

But their most startling recommendation is that the terms "licensed" and "unlicensed" should be eliminated from ECC statements on radio from now on; "individually authorized" or "generally authorized" should be used instead, even though the meanings aren't quite the same:

"...it should be recommended to avoid in the future using in an ECC deliverable the terminologies 'Licensed' and 'Unlicensed'... EU member states may only distinguish between 'individual authorisation' and 'general authorisation'."