Tony Lavender chaired an event on innovation in the digital single market and LSA in Europe

Tony Lavender chaired an event hosted at the European Commission Pavilion at the Milan Expo on 25th October. The theme was innovation in the digital single market in Europe and the first Licenced Shared Access (LSA) trial, which is taking place in the 2.3 GHz band in  Italy. In addition to speeches from Roberto Viola, Director General DG CONNECT, Fatima Barros Chair of BEREC, Gilles Bregant Chairman of RSPG and Georg Peter from the Commission’s Joint Research Council, Tony moderated three panels.

The first panel looked at the development of policy and the role sharing plays in achieving efficient use of spectrum in future. The second panel considered the application of sharing policy and the third panel looked in more detail at technical aspects of the LSA trial being undertaken in Italy. The event highlighted the importance of industry and regulatory cooperation required for sharing – the three way dialogue required between incumbent users, sharers and regulatory agencies and how this has been successfully achieved with the launch of the LSA trial.

Plum undertook a major report for Qualcomm on LSA in 2.3 GHz. The report found that the use of LSA would enable the 2.3 GHz band to be opened up in Europe for use by mobile broadband and that it could generate economic benefits in the range €6.5bn to €22bn depending on the rate of traffic growth. The report can be found here.