The Dutch city of Nijmegen hosted last 11-13 December the 60th meeting of the Short Range Devices/Maintenance Group (SRD/MG) working group, chaired by Thomas Weber of the European Communications Office (ECO) and attended by 43 participants from various administrations, bodies, including the ECO, and industry.
The SRD/MG working group deals with issues associated to short range devices and among other subjects is responsible for updating Recommendation ERC/REC 70-03, responding to the permanent European Commission (EC) mandate on short range devices with a view to updating the Commission Decision on low power short range devices (SRD), and issues concerning ultra wide band (UWB) technology and the identification of new spectrum opportunities for SRD introduction.
The ECO has submitted the latest version of Recommendation 70-03, dated 24 May 2013, which is already posted on the ECO website (www.cept.org).
At the 78th meeting of the Frequency Management working group (WG FM) on 30 September and 4 October 2013, the following documents were adopted for public consultation up to 3 December 2013:
- proposed revision of appendices 1, 2, 5, 9, 10, 11 and 13 of Recommendation 70-03;
- draft ECC Report 189 on “Future Spectrum Demand for Short Range Devices in the UHF Frequency Band”.
Comments received in the public consultation of both documents were discussed and dealt with at this meeting and will be considered at the 79th WG FM meeting (February 2014) for approval (final adoption).
Regarding the 863-870 MHz band, a request was made for the investigation of additional opportunities for high power SRDs, with effective radiated power less than or equal to 500 mW, not specific, in the 862-868 MHz band, including smart metering applications in fixed installations, as an alternative to the 860-875.6 MHz band. After some debate SRD/MG agreed with the proposal.
SRD/MG produced draft ECC Report 192 on the current status of the dynamic frequency selection (DFS) mechanism in 5 GHz in Europe, whose aim is to evaluate whether meteorological radars have suffered interference from radio local area networks (RLANs) in 5 GHz, how much and how detected cases were resolved. Draft ECC Report 192 was adopted for public consultation until 5 December 2013 at the 78th WG FM meeting. Comments were received from four bodies, including Portugal. Note that the comments put forward by Portugal were nearly all accepted, though some subject to editorial changes.
Draft ECC Report 192 will be considered at the 79th WG FM meeting (February 2014) for approval and final adoption.
Upon completion of the compatibility studies for wireless industrial automation (WIA) applications in the 5725-5875 MHz band, the discussion focused on how to regulate such applications; a new entry in Appendix 2 of Recommendation 70-03 has been proposed. The proposed regulatory solution, as discussed at this meeting, will be submitted to the next WG FM meeting so that SRD/MG can obtain comments on it and on how to move forward.
