Ofcom’s strategy focuses on promoting innovation, local access, and spectrum sharing.
A strategy across three areas: On 4 December 2020, Ofcom published its new Spectrum Management Strategy. The strategy is made up of three main areas – Supporting wireless innovation, making licensing tailored to local and national needs, and promoting spectrum sharing. The strategy is open for public consultation until 26 February 2021.
Spectrum in extremely high frequencies will be made available: Ofcom pledges to free up more spectrum for ‘pioneers’ to facilitate the development of innovative services. As part of this objective, Ofcom has already started making available up to 18GHz in extremely high frequency (EHF) airwaves under a flexible licensing regime.
Lowering the barriers for local spectrum access: Ofcom will consider new options for localised spectrum access, to help small businesses which do not need national licences such as airports, factories, and remote farms. National licences will continue to support public mobile services.
Better tools for spectrum sharing: Building on the work of previous years, Ofcom now looks to encourage tools that enable more sophisticated analysis when assessing the conditions for sharing, better resilience to interference, and an efficient balance between interference protection and flexibility for others to transmit.
