This brief is about a study on the Future Mobile Markets & Services that employed a Foresight approach. The role of the study was to provide a robust and realistic understanding of future demand for radio spectrum for mobile services up to 2020. The first challenge was to create an estimate based on sound socio-economic principles rather than techno-centric wish lists. The next was to achieve European consensus on this understanding so it could be supported by all EU players in international fora such as the ITU based in Geneva. The final goal was to develop and apply a method for estimating demand that could gain the support of and be taken up by the 136+ countries involved in ITU Working Party 8F that is trying to understand demand for services and their markets in preparation for WRC-07 – a World Radio Conference to take place in 2007 at which mobile radio spectrum will be apportioned internationally.
EFMN Brief No. 44 – Foresight for Mobile Radio Spectrum 2020