Federal Council rejects new radiofrequency study
As the Federal Council announced on Thursday, it is rejecting the renewed review of Swiss radio frequencies. It does not expect any new findings from this.
As the Federal Council announced on Thursday, it is rejecting the renewed review of Swiss radio frequencies. It does not expect any new findings from this.
With its decision, the Federal Council is responding to a postulate from Claude Janiak, a member of the Basel SP Council of States, who wants the Communications Commission to review the current frequency capacities in collaboration with the Federal Office of Communications. There are indications that frequencies have remained unused.
As the Federal Council recalls, OFCOM had already set up a group of experts in 2001 to review the use of frequencies. This group came to the conclusion that rescheduling the FM frequencies would result in a network restructuring with costs of CHF 50 to 120 million for private broadcasters.
There was also consensus in the expert group that even if the status quo were optimized, the number of FM frequencies could hardly be increased significantly. For this reason, the experts recommended digitizing the frequency spectrum, especially as this would enable high reception quality and the broadcasting of a large number of new stations.
With its decision, the Federal Council is responding to a postulate from Claude Janiak, a member of the Basel SP Council of States, who wants the Communications Commission to review the current frequency capacities in collaboration with the Federal Office of Communications. There are indications that frequencies have remained unused.
As the Federal Council recalls, OFCOM had already set up a group of experts in 2001 to review the use of frequencies. This group came to the conclusion that rescheduling the FM frequencies would result in a network restructuring with costs of CHF 50 to 120 million for private broadcasters.
There was also consensus in the expert group that even if the status quo were optimized, the number of FM frequencies could hardly be increased significantly. For this reason, the experts recommended digitizing the frequency spectrum, especially as this would enable high reception quality and the broadcasting of a large number of new stations.
