Europe

Abstract

Chapter 5 covers the experience of roughly 30 countries, listed alphabetically, that are unequivocally considered to be part of Europe, with most holding membership of the European Union which means that their policies are to a considerable extent governed by the over-arching rules of telecommunications Directives. However, the UK is discussed separately in Chap. 4 (as is Russia albeit only part strictly lies within Europe). Overall, Europe is by far the most advanced region in terms of LTE if account is taken of the number of countries and operators involved, even if, for now, the number of subscriptions is quite small. It is of particular interest because so many countries have auctioned off spectrum and because these auctions have involved a wide variety of spectrum bands. Hence, comparisons can be drawn and an overall picture can be obtained of the financial aspects of LTE. For ease of use, the chapter contains a series of tables with information about individual auctions, although the comparative material is collected together in Chap. 8.