The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has welcomed the ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) decision on the use of the UHF band.
The broadcasters said the decision secures the future of free-to-air digital terrestrial broadcasting.
Representatives of over 150 governments took the decision that UHF spectrum will remain exclusively allocated to terrestrial TV services in ITU “Region 1” well into the next decade. Delegates reached this conclusion after deliberations over whether the lower UHF frequency band (470-694 MHz) should be retained for broadcasting only or also allocated to mobile broadband.
In their session today, representatives reached a consensus that this spectrum, currently used by broadcast services such as DTT and radio microphones, is too important to be allocated to mobile services.
They agreed that there would be no change to the allocation in the 470-694 MHz band either now, or at WRC-19 in four years’ time. Instead there will be a review of the spectrum use in the entire UHF band (470-960 MHz) at the WRC in 2023.
