Brussels hosted last 15 November the 18th meeting of the working party on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMCWP), attended by about 45 participants representing the member states and chaired by Luís Filipe Girão from the Commission.
The following matters stand out:
- Standardisation of Powerline Telecommunications (PLT)
The draft standard pr-EN50 561-1 for PLT technology was voted on and approved, with more than 80 percent of the votes in favour. But the European Commission (EC) submitted a negative opinion regarding this draft standard from its electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) consultant, whereby the EC found it difficult to publish this standard as being harmonised. Some countries, such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal and France, were in favour of harmonising the standard and reference in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), as they held that it was perfectly appropriate for equipment compliance evaluation by market oversight bodies.
- Standardisation work to follow up the 800 MHz decision
To debate the situation with the different stakeholders and reach a common understanding, the EC held three workshops on the use of long term evolution (LTE), focusing on the issue of co-existence between current technology and new services. The following stand out among the various conclusions: i) the use of LTE technology has fewer problems than initially foreseen; ii) concerns may be raised in the future as LTE penetration increases in terms of effective use by part of the population, due to the closeness of other devices operating in adjacent bands with different coverage areas; iii) it is important to go ahead with revision of standard EN55020 to improve the question of digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DVB-T) receiver immunity in the presence of LTE traffic; iv) and users must pay attention to the quality of their installations, which may generally also be a focus of interference, specifically the amplifiers used and the cables.
- Relevance of the EMC Directive in prefabricated connection devices
The benchmarking report for this kind of prefabricated connection devices, IEC connectors and F connectors, was presented. Three countries participated in this exercise: Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The other countries did not take part, indicating that those devices are beyond the EMC Directive’s scope. The exercise’s conclusions show that of the 85 samples subject to evaluation from 45 different makers, only 42.4 percent of the devices comply with requirements of the applicable standards.
A similar benchmark will be scheduled next year for the SCART and HDMI cables.
This group's next meeting will be held on 20 November 2013.
