Commission calls for a hearing on radio frequency allocations

Date: 29/05/1997

By Chris Johnstone

THE EUROPEAN Commission is pushing itself forward as the main voice of the telecoms sector when crucial international haggling over radio frequency allocation takes place, even though the move could spark a clash with national governments.

Its bid for extra powers, which is due to be considered by the full Commission next week, includes a demand for the institution to take the leading role on behalf of Europe's phone companies at the biennial World Radio Communication Conference (WRC) where the main frequency issues are hammered out.

As a scarce resource, frequency is a crucial issue for telecoms companies with expansion ambitions. But national governments, which currently share the task of pushing Europe's interests at the WRC, are unlikely to be on the same wavelength as the Commission.

Until now, the institution has side-stepped clashes with member states over telecommunications issues. Most notably, it chose not to push the idea of a single European regulator to oversee the opening-up of the market to full competition after 1998 and opted instead to leave the job to national authorities.

But on the issue of radio frequencies, the EU has been stung into action by the United States. At the last WRC conference in 1995, the US was widely judged to have stolen a march on Europe when a large chunk of radio frequency was earmarked for the communications ambitions of computer billionaire Bill Gates.

Gates is the main backer of the Teledesic project, which would spend millions of dollars on sending a series of satellites into low orbit around the earth for transmitting telephone messages and data anywhere in the world.

This is impossible using the main mobile telephone systems available world-wide and a system filling the gap is seen as a licence to print money by some industry analysts.

But Gates could still see the hand-over of his valuable frequencies blocked if Europe can prove his plans could interfere with existing satellite operations.

The Commission's communication will also call for a forum to enable

Europe's companies to keep it informed about their needs and demands.

Since 1995, Martin Bangemann, the Commissioner for information technology and telecommunications, has been pushing European firms to develop their own strategies for satellite communications so that US industry does not dominate this new multi-billion-ecu market.