A leading French economist, Professor Joelle Toledano, has just published a report which points to the importance of progressive spectrum management to innovation and economic growth. The report which was commissioned by the French Finance Ministry, in the middle of 2013, draws on interviews with major players and innovators from Europe and the US. It highlights the leading role played by the US and the UK in getting dynamic spectrum access started and points to the importance of licence exemption as a tool for accelerating innovation. The report is written in French, but an executive summary in English can be found here.

It will be interesting to see what actions French policymakers take in response to Professor Toledano's recommendations. France is very influential in developing European spectrum policy and contributes significant resources to working groups in CEPT and ETSI. So its Government's actions will be studied closely.

A recent blog post by FCC Commission Chair Tom Wheeler has indicated that a draft rule & order has been circulated, laying out plans for an incentive auction in the 600 MHz band, currently being used by broadcasters. The proposals are thought to include measures to secure capacity for unlicensed (licence-exempt) use - including Channel 37 (currently kept clear for radio astronomy and medical applications). There is potential to make guard bands and duplex gaps available, in the event of broadcasters releasing the spectrum through the much discussed incentive auctions. Any measures to reserve licence exempt access would be helpful to the emerging white spaces technology market and helpful for increasing Wi-Fi coverage capability (through the recently published 802.11af variant).

It still remains to be seen exactly what will be offered in any auction, and which broadcasters would seek to avail themselves of any disposal options.

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The UK regulator, Ofcom, has announced that it is making two 6 channels (870-876 and 915-921 MHz) available for use by Short Range Devices, on a licence exempt basis. Its statement also forsees the need to authorise higher power applications and will be working on a mechanism for this. The latter could be useful for wide area network applications such car-related communication, smart metering and a host of other possible Internet of Things (machine to machine networks) (a similarly positioned band in the US has proved very popular for this purpose).

To encourage innovation, Ofcom has sought to make access requirements as neutral as possible

Power constraints arise from the risk to railway communication systems using E-GSM-R. This appears to be an area where Ofcom could in future apply dynamic spectrum access technology (i.e. geolocation) to enable constraints to be restricted to areas where the railway infrastructure is located.