FINAL REPORT - Stakeholders - Ofcom

Given the physical range of transmissions in the bands concerned, it is also feasible that
the UK could ‘go it alone’ in making changes to these bands as only in exceptional
circumstances would any interference be caused to or from foreign countries.
However, and especially in the 9 GHz bands, the operation of radars and their associated
devices (RTE, RACON etc) are a large and critical part of the services which protect the
lives of mariners. If the UK were to introduce services which were, at a later date, proven
to have caused an incident involving loss of life, the social consequences could be
potentially large. However, radars are not the only element of the GMDSS, which also
includes EPIRBs relying on satellite communications. Having said that, identifying the
location of a vessel at sea can not easily be accomplished by satellite and EPIRBs, but at
sea is unlikely to be where land-based interference is a large problem.
The major restriction in terms of increased sharing is however, the other users who
occupy the bands. The 3 GHz band is already shared with aeronautical services and both
the 3 and 9 GHz bands are shared with military users. It seems likely, therefore, that
sharing of the maritime radar bands with other users, despite the apparent feasibility of
such sharing, is again stymied by those other users.
Recommendation 4.4: A survey into the usage of ship-berthing radar should be
conducted and a suitable allocation (if available and required) made available to enable
them to be licensed. The potential for these (or indeed any other) unlicensed devices, to
cause interference to legitimate spectrum users needs to be controlled and Ofcom should
consider undertaking a market surveillance exercise to determine the size and nature of
the problem.
The unlicensed use of ship-berthing radars at around 14 GHz had the potential to cause
interference with other licensed users. It is possible that such radars are lower power
devices operating in licence exempt spectrum under the auspices of ERC decision
99(07). However, this has not been proven.
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