FINAL REPORT - Stakeholders - Ofcom

"be imposed upon the individual undertakings in an objective, transparent and
proportionate, manner which minimises additional administrative costs and
attendant charges."
Article 13 of the Authorisation Directive provides that Member States may allow NRAs to:-
"impose fees for the rights of use for radio frequencies… which reflect the need to
ensure the optimal use of these resources. Member States shall ensure that such
fees shall be objectively justified, transparent, non-discriminatory, and proportionate
in relation to their intended purpose and shall take into account the objectives in
Article 7 of Directive 2002./21/EC [Framework Directive]."
The Framework Directive 34 requires (Article 8) Member States to:
"ensure the effective management of radio frequencies for electronic
communication services in their territory" and to "ensure that the allocation and
assignment of such radio frequencies by national regulatory authorities are based
on objective, transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate criteria".
The Framework Directive also makes provision for NRAs to permit the transfer of rights to
use radio spectrum between undertakings, subject to notification to the NRA and on the
condition that competition is not distorted as a result of such transfer, and that no change
of use to harmonised spectrum allocations is involved.
Article 15 of the Authorisation Directive relates to availability of information on fees and
charges, requiring Member States to:
"ensure that all relevant information on rights, conditions, procedures, charges, fees
and decisions concerning general authorisations and rights of use is published and
kept up to date in an appropriate manner so as to provide easy access to that
information for all interested parties."
Again it is necessary to point out that there is a fundamental difference in terminology
between the Licensing (the terminology used in this report) and Authorisation Directives,
in that the term Administrative Fees is replaced by Administrative Charges in the
Authorisation Directive, and charges (relating to scarce resources) are replaced by fees
for the right of use of radio frequencies.
7.2.1.2 CEPT ECC
The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications administrations (CEPT) is
the regional regulatory telecommunications body for Europe and currently has a
membership of 46 European and neighbouring countries. CEPT’s Electronic
Communications Committee (ECC) co-ordinates the use of the radio spectrum across the
CEPT region. It has five permanent working groups in the spectrum management field
concerned with frequency management (FM), spectrum engineering (SE), regulatory
affairs (RA), WRC preparation and ITU council conference preparation. The RA working
group has responsibility for matters relating to fees and charges for radio spectrum.
The ECC’s stated aim is “to ensure that European administrations, industry, broadcasters,
service providers, operators and users derive maximum benefit from the finite spectrum
resource”. In line with wider European moves to develop a fully integrated single market,
ECC is endeavouring to harmonise frequency allocations as far as possible throughout
Europe. Whilst some harmonisation initiatives have been backed by Commission
Directives or Decisions, in many other cases the Commission has delegated this
responsibility to CEPT, whose mandates take the form of ECC Decisions, whereby
34 Council common position adopted 17 September 2001.
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