The German government has become the latest in Europe to approve allocating some of the low frequency ‘Digital Dividend’ spectrum for mobile use. According to German press reports, the government has published a directive calling for frequencies in the 790-862MHz band to be used for mobile broadband services in rural regions. If approved by Germany’s Bundesrat (federal council) in May, the German regulator (BNA) will be able to begin allocating the frequencies to service providers before the end of this year. German ICT industry federation Bitkom has welcomed the decision and has called for German states in the federal council to follow the lead of the government. It was separately announced last week that German mobile operator E-Plus, equipment-vendor Ericsson and the German state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have launched a mobile broadband pilot using Digital Dividend frequencies.

The Digital Dividend spectrum is being freed up by the move from analogue to digital TV, and last month at the GSMA Mobile World Congress the industry called for 100MHz of the 400MHz Digital Dividend spectrum available to be assigned to mobile. Other countries in Europe that have committed to freeing up some of the spectrum for mobile use include Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, France and the UK. The lower frequencies are considered to make network expansion into rural areas more economically viable and enable greater ‘in-building’ coverage.