GSMA WELCOMES BALTIC GOVERNMENTS’ COMMITMENT TO HARMONISING SECOND DIGITAL DIVIDEND FOR MOBILE BROADBAND

October 20, 2015

Press Release

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London: John Giusti, Deputy Chief Regulatory Officer, GSMA, commented on the outcome of the Baltic Sea Summit regarding the Second Digital Dividend (700MHz band), which took place in Helsinki today:

“The GSMA applauds the Finnish Ministry of Communications for spearheading a unified approach to the allocation of 700MHz spectrum for mobile broadband in the Baltic Sea region. With mobile data traffic rising rapidly, we welcome the commitment by the governments of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden to meet the broadband needs of their citizens by accelerating the reallocation of the 700MHz band to mobile services.

“The 700MHz spectrum band has ideal characteristics for mobile broadband, offering good geographic coverage, improved in-building reach and availability in large enough blocks for efficient delivery of mobile services. Freeing up this spectrum for mobile will expand access to 4G networks across the continent, with 83 per cent of the European population expected to have 4G access by 2020¹ .

“Mobile broadband brings substantial social and economic benefits to the citizens and businesses of Europe, increasing GDP contribution and boosting employment. The drive for EU-wide harmonisation of this “Second Digital Dividend” will further enable economies of scale, allowing manufacturers to mass-produce devices that function in multiple countries on the same band² .

“During treaty negotiations at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2012 (WRC-12), it was agreed that the 700MHz band would be made available for mobile services in Region 1³ after WRC-15, which takes place next month. We trust that this agreement amongst the Baltic governments will pave the way for the deployment of a second wave of Digital Dividend bandwidth across Europe and bring us a step closer to achieving the targets of the Digital Agenda.”