Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and the Port of Rotterdam Authority have filed legal actions against the government’s 5G 3.5GHz spectrum policy, arguing for more bandwidth to be guaranteed for their private/industrial local networks. The plaintiffs disagree with details of the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy (MEACP’s) plans for distributing the 3.5GHz band to mobile network operators and private/industrial local spectrum users.

At the end of February the MEACP amended the National Frequency Plan to pave the way for 3.5GHz 5G allocations by December 2023, with a 300MHz tranche of national spectrum ringfenced for mobile operators, alongside a ‘provisional’ allocation of two 50MHz blocks at the lower and upper end of the band (3400MHz-3450MHz and 3750MHz-3800MHz) for local wireless applications. However, as reported by local website Dutch IT Channel, both the Port of Rotterdam and Schiphol fear that the ‘first come, first served’ policy for distributing the latter spectrum could prevent them from securing their required bandwidth. The Port argues specifically that the frequencies reserved for parties other than telecom companies are of lower quality, which could disrupt its development of 5G facilities to support autonomous ships and data processing via IoT sensors in the port, among other applications.

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