Liberalisation of frequency assignments continues

The Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) plans to liberalize the assignment of frequencies in the areas of 450 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2 GHz and 3.5 GHz. The current frequency assignments should be adapted to the goals of technology and implementation neutrality. Interested parties are invited to comment on the draft decision of the presidential chamber by July 17th, 2009. The steps planned by the Agency are partially far-reaching: the spectrum 800 MHz along with the frequencies in the areas 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz and 2.6 GHz will be assigned anew, among others. Finally, GSM license holders will be provided an option to extend their frequency assignments until December 31, 2025. In this way, the license of the D1 network, for example, would not be accessible on the market for a total of 33 years (the original license was awarded on December 23, 1992). Resistance to these measures is expected.