FINAL REPORT - Stakeholders - Ofcom

particularly true of airports with lower traffic levels where the provision of radar facilities
presents a significant budgetary requirement.
3.2.9.4 Cost Recovery
The MoD finances the majority of the L band costs in contract with NATS with NATS
recovering the remainder through the mechanism of the en route charges.
NATS recovers costs of airport radar services either directly through users or under the
terms of contracts with airport operators. Non NATS airports recover costs directly from
users.
3.2.9.5 Replacement Planning
NATS (NATS En Route Limited) has recently embarked on a major surveillance radar
replacement project. This project envisages replacement of its entire UK radar network by
2012. These are en-route facilities. Replacement of the approach radars, where NATS
(NATS Services Ltd) provides airport air traffic services, is subject to the terms of the
agreements with the airport operators. Although they mostly use TWT based “driven
transmitters” with pulse compression, these facilities are likely to require replacement in
the next five years or so.
There are a large number of S band and X band approach radars based on magnetron
systems in use at the “non NATS” airports. Any proposal to update these radars on
spectrum management issues would require extensive consultation with the operators
involved. Some of the X band systems at the smaller airports are very old. Their
replacement with equivalent low cost systems may not be practical.
3.2.9.6 Pricing
The Cave report recommends incentive pricing to encourage the efficient use of the
spectrum. This covers both differential pricing - to encourage alternative more spectrally
efficient systems - and opportunity cost pricing - to encourage users to economise on
spectrum based on the use of alternative technologies at the margin. It is not clear,
however, that there is any viable technology to replace primary radar – certainly not in the
short term. In the absence of suitable alternative technologies, pricing would not provide
any incentive to move away from primary radar. On the other hand, pricing could be used
as a mechanism to provide an incentive for the adoption of incremental changes (rather
than outright replacement) to improve spectral efficiency or to explore band sharing
possibilities.
In the context of primary radar, most ATC providers are likely to adopt spectrally efficient
technology during the next replacement cycle.
The only incremental change proposed is related to the adoption of filters on current
generation magnetron systems. Given that complete system replacement is likely to
precede upgrade in most cases, the application of pricing for a limited application (filters)
is not recommended.
3.2.9.7 Specific Measures to Release Spectrum
The proposal to withdraw radar services from the UHF Band may meet resistance from
the operators of the two remaining radars. Although the radars are old, they are
supported by adequate spares and an undertaking regarding the availability of
frequencies until the equipment requires replacement. On the other hand the equipment
is old. The cost and timescales of replacing the two systems needs to be examined
alongside a review of the operational requirement. Based on this review, there are two
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