Response to RNLI-RF Licences

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to
protect the RNLI from paying licence fees for using Maritime radio
frequencies.”
Details of Petition:
“As reported in the Sunday Telegraph on the 28th September 2008,
Ofcom wants to bring “market forces” into the maritime and aviation
communications. The RNLI will have to pay £250,000 a year, and “smaller
search and rescue charities fear they may have to close”. This proposal
must be rejected wholeheartedly.”

• Radio channels used by search and rescue
  organisations (including the RNLI) in the course of maritime
  emergencies are managed by HM Coastguard. These are shared channels and
  we will not be asking any individual rescue organisations to pay fees.
  
• In addition, we are proposing to make available,
  free of charge, a new channel (possibly two) to be shared by search and
  rescue organisations for routine, non emergency, communications. We
  have invited rescue organisations to say whether this would be helpful
  to them.
  
• Finally, where any charity, whose sole or main
  objective is the safety of human life in an emergency, requires a radio
  channel for its exclusive use, we are proposing that fees should
  continue to be discounted by 50%. Larger organisations which operate
  from multiple sites will also benefit from new “area defined licences”
  which permit an unlimited number of transmitters in the licensed area;
  these will often be much cheaper than today’s licences.