EC Earning Financial Boost

May 5th, 2008 an announcement was made regarding a financial boost to the UHF band. The European Economy announced they would provide 95 billion Euros over the next 20 years for broadband services, if one quarter of the UHF would be used for that broadband service. This news came from the consultant group Spectrum Value Partners, based in London.

The report drawn up was commissioned by Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone. They wanted the consultancy to pay special attention to the communication technology in which they analyzed the costs and benefits of using UHF. By using UHF, the companies are hoping to see that quantities of broadband and broadcast in Europe can increase in size.

The benefits will differ from country to country within Europe, but the 95 billion Euros will go a long way towards getting the UHF spectrum to perform for the industry, and of course that means customer base can increase overall.

The market investigators found that 2.5 trillion Euros will be generated by the European mobile companies as a result of the UHF move in the next 20 years, if the funds are allocated to them. The delay in the release of the UHF technology may cost them three years and 20 billion Euros, so this is something to be considered why they are trying to get everything set up.

The study resulted in showing that the rest of the band and broadcasters would generate about 750 billion Euros into the economy during the 20 years.

Spectrum, in their results, showed that the free to air analogue broadcast TV channels will also continue to be in high or standard definition during that time. This is where a lot of the value is going to come from since they are already broadcasting over the waves, and the new digital only could actually hinder the progress they are trying for.

The key is to try to use the UHF option for the mobile systems because it will offer a lower cost to customers, while offering a wider base. With the 12MHZ band there will not be interference between the mobile and TV broadcasts. The mobile phones would be operating at 40 MHz and 140 MHz. This is also a wider range offering more to the customer.

Other research has found that the 92 MHz UHF band for the mobile broadband operators allows for a quarter of the total that is currently being used. It will add to the value of the programme they are working on.

The UHF release will offer cheaper mobile broadband abroad and this service will provide mobile broadband across Europe to their customers for mobile phones. This growth will make it even easier to get new customers for mobile browsing, email and video services. It will help to increase jobs and new companies for the wireless world. The fact is the move has a lot of potential that the study has shown to corroborate.

The efficiency of use on the UHF spectrum is also going to help Europe remain on the global leader position for broadcasting and mobile communications. It will be farther along than many other areas.

Vodafone has stated their desire to make sure the EC will consider the study during the Regulatory Impact Assessment that is needed to get the go ahead for the programme. This assessment will start in the next few months. The US has already auctioned off UHF TV. They did so in March of 2008. Only three countries in Europe have joined in the digital proposal, but there is hope that more will follow once the assessment has been given by the EC, so that project can move ahead.