Decision to make Wireless Telegraphy Licence Charges Regulations

This document sets out Ofcom’s decision to make Wireless Telegraphy Licence Charges Regulations in relation to Satellite Services licences

1.1 On 13 November 2007, Ofcom published a Statutory Notice[ ^(-1-)] entitled “Notice of Ofcom’s proposal to make Wireless Telegraphy Regulations relating to Satellite Services licences” (“the statutory notice”) which was a consultation on the regulations that would modify the charges for some classes of satellite licence. This followed a policy consultation, published on 6 July 2006, which proposed modifications to Wireless Telegraphy Act licence charges (“the policy consultation[ ^(-2-)]”). The policy consultation set out a number of proposals for modifying licence charges imposed in accordance with the powers granted to us under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 (“the WT Act”). We carefully considered the responses to the policy consultation and on 10 January 2007 issued a statement, “Modifications to spectrum pricing” (“the policy statement”) [ ^(-3-)], explaining our decisions.

1.2 In order to make or change fees for Wireless Telegraphy licences we are required to make regulations. The statutory notice, gave statutory notice of our intention to amend the Wireless Telegraphy (Licence Charges) Regulations 2005. This statement explains Ofcom’s decision to make the Wireless Telegraphy (Licence charges) (Amendment) Regulations 2008 (“the regulations”).

1.3 We received three responses to the statutory notice. These responses have been published on the Ofcom website[ ^(-4-)] and we have carefully considered them in reaching our decisions. The responses were mainly favourable but some respondents raised objections to the policy which will be put into effect by the introduction of the regulations. We have already consulted on, made and explained our policy decisions in relation to the Satellite Services licences. We received a request to increase the time that we are allowing for phasing in the changes by one year. We have already considered the issue of phasing in the introduction of the changes and have announced our decisions on this in the policy statement in addition we have already given stakeholders over a year’s notice from the time that we published our policy statement in January 2007 to the introduction of the changes in March 2008. As a result, we do not intend to change the decisions that we have already made on this issue.

1.4 We have made a number of minor editorial changes to the amendment regulations to improve the presentation and clarity of the regulations. These changes will not have any material effect on the regulations. We made no changes to the regulations as a result of the responses to the statutory notice.

1.5 The regulations were made on 23 January 2008 and have been submitted for registration and publication. They will come into force on 13 February 2008.

1.6 Section 2 of this document provides a general background to the policy and regulatory framework for WT Act licence charges.

1.7 Section 3 of this document explains the general effect of the regulations.

1.8 A Regulatory Impact Assessment (“RIA”) setting out the benefits, costs and risks of the regulations is included at Annex 4.

1.9 The regulations (in draft) can be found at Annex 5. A final version will shortly be published by the Office of Public Sector Information[ ^(-5-)]. Further hard copies of the draft pricing regulations are available from Diana Kennedy at 2a Southwark Bridge Road , London SE1 9HA.

Footnotes:

1.-http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/wt/summary/

2.- http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pricing06/

3.- http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pricing06/statement/

4.- http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/wt/summary/

5.-http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si-2008-index

The full document is available below