Ride the wave

Public and private sector representatives yesterday launched the ‘Bandsharing Forum’, a not-for-profit, private sector funded organisation that will facilitate the sharing of public sector controlled radio spectrum.

Qinetiq is one of a number of organisations that has helped form the Bandsharing Forum and will contribute its expertise to address the challenge of an increasingly crowded radio spectrum. Other stakeholders include the government, regulators and the public sector.

Over the last two decades new mobile and wireless technologies have increased demand for radio spectrum worldwide. Despite that demand just three UK public bodies, the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) currently control access to more than 40% of the most useful radio spectrum with varying levels of utilisation.

In 2005 an HM Treasury sponsored report (the Cave Audit) called for the extension of market forces to public sector spectrum and outlined the potential for new technologies to share significant blocks of capacity. The government’s positive response to the Cave Audit noted, ‘there is scope for more effective use of public sector spectrum through the introduction of spectrum trading and increased sharing with other users, and [the government] will work with Ofcom to enable this.’ That endorsement effectively paved the way for a sharing of under-utilised public sector spectrum.