The EU commissioner responsible for telecoms, Neelie Kroes, will today press the EU’s council of telecoms ministers in Brussels to sign up to the commission’s proposals on freeing spectrum for wireless broadband by 2013. In particular, the EC is calling on EU countries to make available frequencies in the 800 MHz band following the switch from analogue to digital TV broadcasting (the so-called digital dividend). “Kroes will ask ministers not to shy away from difficult decisions, and to instead show the political will to move away from a ‘business as usual approach’ to ambitious spectrum management”, said a commission statement ahead of the event. The commission proposed in September that EU countries should complete the licence issue process for mobile broadband spectrum by end-2012, as part of a five-year plan intended to manage and harmonise the use of EU radio allocations.

So far, few European countries have advanced plans for allocating spectrum in the 800 MHz band. Germany is a rarity having successfully completed an auction of the frequencies in May this year. But the need for spectrum harmonisation is widely acknowledged, both in Europe and other regions around the world. Last month, the GSMA released research that showed the positive impact harmonising spectrum for mobile broadband could have on economies in the Asia Pacific region. The same arguments also apply to harmonisation in the EU. Separate to the commission’s spectrum announcement, Neelie Kroes said she will “soon” launch a public consultation on roaming ahead of the review of current regulation which is due before the end of June 2011. Kroes will lay out her thinking today on the lack of competition, and long-term market and technology developments in roaming. She will also question whether retail data roaming regulation is necessary, while emphasising that price regulation should be a last resort.