Ares(2019)3651776

Public consultation on small-area wireless access points

Summary report of the Open Public Consultation on the Implementing Act on small-area wireless access points

TEASER: The public consultation took place between 10 January and 10 April 2019. It was conducted in the context of the implementation of Article 57 of the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC or ‘the Code’). The aim of the consultation was to provide all the interested parties with an opportunity to express their views on the physical and technical characteristics to be taken into account in the preparation of a “light deployment regime” for small-area wireless access points. This summary report takes stock of the contributions and presents preliminary trends that emerge from them.

Objectives of the consultation

Pursuant to Article 57 of the Code the Commission services are preparing a first Commission Implementing Act on small-area wireless access points (SAWAPs or ‘small cells’), that will be exempted from any individual town planning permit or other prior individual permits, except for environmental or historical reasons or public safety. Its adoption is targeted for Q2/2020, in compliance with the deadline of 30 June 2020 in the Code. In this context and following the better regulation guidelines, the Commission launched an open public consultation on aspects of the implementing act. The goal of the consultation was to collect feedback and views that will contribute to the inception of an EU-wide regulatory measure.

Who replied to the consultation?

The public consultation was held in the period 10 January - 10 April 2019. The summary of the results is as follows:

§Of the 60 replies to the public consultation, 58,9% came from companies/business organisations/business associations and Trade Unions, 19,6% from public administrations, 12,5% from EU citizens and 8,9% from other stakeholders, including academic and research institutions.

§The major part of the responses (42,9%) came from large organisations (with 250 or more employees), 19,6% from micro- (1-9 employees), 16,1% from small (10 to 49 employees) and 8,9% from medium (50 to 249 employees) organisations or enterprises.

§The majority of the respondents (53,6%) is in favour of publishing their contribution, whereas 46,4% are not.

Categories of non-individual respondents

Preliminary findings of the public consultation

Without prejudice to the in-depth analysis of the replies to the public consultation, we can observe the following overall trends:

According to the statistics, responses can be grouped into three major categories, namely: EU citizens and academic institutions, telecom industry and public administrations.

EU Citizens and Academic Institutes

EU Citizens who replied to the Public Consultation have focused mainly on visual impact, coverage and Quality of Services (QoS). A few EU citizens and one academic institution expressed concerns about the exposure of the public to electromagnetic fields (EMF).

Telecom industry

Industry supports the Implementing Regulation, which should eliminate the EU average of six months required for granting permits and thus facilitate small cell deployment. The measures to be taken should be harmonised at the EU level, while allowing Member States to exempt additional classes of SAWAP based on less restrictive rules.

Industry proposes to set a limit on the total volume of a permit-free SAWAP. Industry broadly supports the non-introduction of limits and permits for indoor small cells. For both indoor and outdoor small cells, industry views widely support mandating adherence to an existing harmonized standard, i.e. CENELEC EN 50385:2017 and IEC 62232:2017 that ensures compliance with Council Recommendation 1999/519/EC, and sets constraints on the emission power, the maximum height of the antenna, and the minimum exclusion distance of an SAWAP installation.

Public Administrations

Only a few public administrations (local authorities/ministries) answered the questionnaire. Their responses focused on the need to address aesthetics, emission power (albeit different approaches), co-location and shared use of infrastructure.

Statistics on major aspects of the public consultation

§With regard to the characteristics of small cells, which should be considered to determine the installations that would be exempted from permits, the majority of the answers (76,8%) supported emission power, followed by size (62,5%), height of the installation (33,9%), weight (33,9%), frequency (32,1%) and other characteristics (51,8%).

§The majority of the participants (66,1%) confirmed to have experience with permit procedures for the installation of small cells. The inputs demonstrate that the average time required for granting permits varies considerably among Member States and lacks predictability. The average time across the Union is about 6 months and the average number of authorities involved is at least three.

§50% of the responses consider aesthetics, due to the potential accumulation of small cells, as a problem that needs to be addressed. 75% supports that a permit-exempted regime for small cells should still be subject to some kind of notification to the competent national authorities.

§The vast majority of the responses (80,4%) considers that the implementing measure will positively impact deployment speed, followed by network deployment costs (69,6%), administrative costs (67,9%), visual pollution (39,3%) and energy consumption (32,1%).

Next steps

The Commission is now carrying out an in-depth analysis of the replies received to the public consultation. A synopsis report will be published in due course.

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