SRD/MG meeting - April 2017

The 70th meeting of the Short Range Devices/Maintenance Group (SRD/MG)¹ was held last 26-28 April in Mainz, Germany, attended by 54 participants from various administrations and bodies, including the European Commission, the European Communications Office (ECO) and industry.

The participants considered the comments received on the new annexes 9 and 10 and on the main text of Recommendation 70-03, which were under public consultation until last 4 April. The comments were all resolved by the group. Those proposals will now be forwarded to the 88th meeting of the Frequency Management working group (WG FM) to be held in May 2017, for approval and publication.

SRD/MG will propose that WG FM approve for public consultation proposals to modify annexes 1, 2, 3, 5, 9 and 12 of Recommendation 70-03, especially the following:

• The proposals to modify annexes 1, 2 and 3 resulting from the approval of ECC Report 246 on “Wideband and Higher DC Short Range Devices in 870-875.8 MHz and 915.2-920.8 MHz (companion to ECC Report 200)” and ECC Report 261 on “Short Range Devices in the frequency range 862-870 MHz”, as well as discussions on the addendum to CEPT Report 59;
• The proposal to remove entry a) of annex 5, 870-875.8 MHz band, given that demand has not materialised and bearing in mind results of the addendum to CEPT Report 59.

Other modification proposals were also made for the aforementioned annexes to Recommendation 70-03, based on CEPT Report 59. Furthermore, proposals were put forward to revise annex 10 of Recommendation 70-03, based on the proposed ECC Report on “Sharing studies between Telecoil Replacement Systems (TRS) and MSS in the frequency range 1656.5-1660.5 MHz” being produced by the Spectrum Engineering working group. The proposals to revise annexes 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10 and 12 of Recommendation 70-03 will be submitted to the aforementioned 88th WG FM meeting for public consultation.

The new SRdoc TR 103 435 on technical characteristics of ultra narrow band (UNB) SRD was considered, which proposes operating in spectrum below 1 GHz. UNB systems serve to supply data networks with respect to the internet of things and to develop new applications. The aim of these new requisites is to boost network coverage to supply long-range connections for short-message transmission. New opportunities in the 865-868 MHz and 915-921 MHz bands are requested. This issue will continue to be analysed in SRD/MG

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) also made new requests regarding ultra wideband (UWB) technology, basically concerning medical sensors, harmonisation of mitigation techniques and limits (if that possibility exists) and new mitigation techniques for opening the door to new applications. This matter will be dealt with in the scope of the Commission’s new permanent mandate on UWB technology.

The definition of professional (private) mobile radio 446 was revised, particularly the one in annex 1 of ECC Decision (15)05, in order to make the definition for integrated antenna more clear and thereby minimise the risk of different interpretations.

Other issues discussed included machine-to-machine applications for satellite short range equipment, urban rail systems in bands for smart transport systems, which may imply revision ECC Decision (08)01, and high speed wireless access applications for the 60 GHz band (57-66 GHz).