BEREC events 2023

BEREC invites industry stakeholders to express interest in presenting their views about direct-to-cell connectivity during a virtual workshop on secure and reliable connectivity from LEO satellite fleets. 

On 13 April 2023 (from 13:30 CET for 2.5hrs approx), BEREC will hold a virtual workshop on secure and reliable connectivity from LEO satellite fleets, focusing mainly on direct-to-cell connectivity (registration portal open here until 10 April 2023).

In the first instance, BEREC is inviting interested stakeholders on direct-to-cell connectivity (e.g. LEO satellite operators, terminal equipment vendors, telcos) to express their interest to present to BEREC. Should this open call not be oversubscribed from stakeholders in direct to cell connectivity, or if there is capacity, interest and demand, BEREC would look to accommodate presenters about other future-new services available from low earth orbit / mixed orbit satellite fleets. BEREC does however need to be realistic in terms of number of presentations, and its preference to learn more about the latest terrestrial mobile and satellite network announcements.

By addressing some of the Questions/themes (see below) it is intended that presenting stakeholders may usefully create targeted presentations that address issues of interest to BEREC. In this regard, BEREC would most welcome hearing about practical examples from presenters. Depending on take up, the current thinking is that presentations would be set out in c. 6-8min or c.3-5 slides, and addressing at least one of the questions or themes below. 

The audience includes the working group experts and senior policy / decision makers in the national regulatory authorities, though it may be of interest to some Heads of national telecoms regulators (NRAs). 

The outcome of the workshop will be a summary report and a list of potential next steps for NRAs to better engage with this topic. It may also generate demand for another workshop or future work by BEREC. 
Please express your interest to present by sending email with your contact details to [email protected]  by 30 March 2023 or earlier. Afterwards you will be contacted individually.

Questions/themes for presenting stakeholders  

Experts set out some preliminary questions / themes below as a guide, observing that some questions / topics may be more relevant or important to certain groups of stakeholders. The idea is that stakeholder presentations are prepared in a way that would assist the experts in their mission to better understand the market access issues from LEO satellite fleets to markets in Europe.  

Given the targeted style being proposed, BEREC would hope that stakeholders can focus on one or two points and give some detail on a few questions/topics rather than setting out a high-level sweep of all points. 

The services provided and foreseen, and the service fee(s) for end users, will dictate the focus of presentations. Moreover, the focus will depend on the main target segment(s) for direct-to-cell stakeholders.  This should be borne in mind when preparing the presentations. 

      1. Views on routes to market

• Status of routes to market access
  • Whether regulatory framework needs to be adopted to enable market access? 
  • Regulatory frameworks encountered at national or EU level?
    •   Challenges and proposals
• What types of market issues (access) may develop in future?
  • [access to] Terrestrial IMT bands without satellite service allocation.
    • Network identification and numbering/addressing issues
    • International roaming / interoperability / handovers within European market
    • any other regulatory issue foreseen in market access  
• Whether regulation for direct satellite-to-mobile technology is needed and why?

      2. Views on competition and differentiation 

• What are the potential competition issues
  • To what extent do direct collaborations between telcos and satellite operators impact competition?
  • To what extent direct collaborations between telcos and commercial mobile terminal equipment (e.g. handsets) manufacturers impact competition?
  • Do collaborations entrench the position of commercial mobile terminal equipment (e.g. handsets) manufacturers – how can smaller telecom operators participate?
  • Are there any other firm rivalry issues that might come to fruition and what might they be? 
  • To what extent other satellite operators, at the same frequency bands, can enter the market?
  • Are there significant differences between stakeholder types (large multinational MNOs, smaller MNOs, MVNOs, verticals) to enter this market?
• Whether the sector considers there to be bottlenecks which are in the domain of the national telecommunications regulator? 
• Interplay with gigabit society and connectivity ambitions.

Where it is beneficial to do so, it might be useful to have presentations that might also elaborate on various technical issues. To be clear, BEREC does not have competence in spectrum assignment, so issues which are being dealt with at ITU level (or through compatibility studies within the CEPT) need not be repeated at this virtual event.  

      3. Technical: Equipment/technology and sustainability issues 

• Standardization status
  • Commercial mobile terminal equipment (e.g. handsets) frequency bands
  • Role of chipsets (e.g. in handsets)
• Bit rate capabilities and routing issues
  • Components of the satellite or/and terrestrial network and relevant operations, how traffic capacity is been routed around the network and bit rate capabilities from the network components
  • Again, role of chipsets   
• What is the impact on sustainability ? 
• What is being done / what is the capability to offer network redundancy / resiliency ?
• To the extent not addressed in other fora (such as at CEPT workshop 20, 21 November 2022) 
  • whether coordination with other satellite operators is sufficient to avoid interference between them, as due to ITU regulatory framework these frequencies are proposed to  use inter-alia; 
  • Methods that authorities could use to protect the terrestrial service from spectrum interference (monitor and resolve) or relevant mitigation techniques established by satellite operators and telcos.