was reading about this yesterday – may even email the Ofcom man with my concerns about this – if taken to extremes it would make a lot of very useful equipment and modules illegal throughout Europe. Many hackers and radio enthusiasts across Northern Europe are already most unhappy about this.
Even now RFM22 circuits (that can be used for transmitting to various UHF devices such as pagers) are becoming hard to get; I had to wait a week for mine to arrive via Scotland whilst it was ordered from elsewhere in Europe and cleared Border Force.
it has been illegal for nearly a century to transmit radio signals anywhere in Europe outside authorised bands and/or cause harmful interference; the exact equipment used isn’t that relevant. (the Communications Ministries can and do order random industrial equipment and / or particularly rough power line networking setups to be disconnected or altered to prevent this).
laws like this also harm society in the long run as they deter younger people from conducting harmless experiments with low power radio communications equipment and thus learning skills to keep the next generation of wireless communications operating.
Although amateur radio still remains popular worldwide and licenses are much easier to get; the licenses are not always the most appropriate for such things as IOT systems and for logistic reasons (such as finding the exam centre which is often in a remote part of a region) this hobby is always going to be more popular/accessible to those in late youth/early middle age – and these laws will also prevent the hams legitimately modifying off the shelf equipment for use on their allocated frequencies.
In all of Europe it is not good practice to ride your bicycle (whether it is a push bike or e-bike) at 25 km/h through the busy pedestrian precinct. In some countries you might well get a traffic violation ticket and a fine of as much as €80-100! So e-bikes are limited to around 25 km/h max (although this can be slightly increased). But you don’t hear of bike shops being banned from selling e-bikes; thinner tyres or any other equipment that could make cycling faster. Indeed many European nations would think it would be quite ludicrous to do so; as bicycles are popular for both transport and sport/hobby use. The same applies to radio equipment…
