Telecommunications Act

The Austrian Telecommunications Act does not define its own threshold values but uses the recognised limit values in standards and other sources. The licenses for the transmitter stations in the wireless network of a mobile phone operator refer to these thresholds. Compliance with these thresholds is controlled by radio monitoring. Generally, the values actually measured are significantly lower.

The existing transmitter stations are notified to the authority. This is done to provide an overview of the transmitter stations for the radio monitoring. This means that there is no generally legible register of transmitter stations, which has often been requested, as the data is prepared for technical monitoring only and cannot be interpreted without specific additional information. A general, publicly available overview of the location of the transmitter stations is available on the internet under www.senderkataster.at. This information relies on a joint initiative of the ministry and the mobile telecommunications operators.

Provincial law

The authorisation to operate the transmitter station is granted according to the provisions of the Austrian Telecommunications Act. The authorisation process has to be distinguished from the process for the construction of such transmitters. This process has to be assessed according to the relevant building regulations of the Federal Provinces and therefore falls within the competence of the mayor as building authority of first instance.

For building a mobile phone transmitter, not only the technical requirements - which are clarified in advance -  but above all also contractual and regulatory framework conditions have to be met. Therefore, an agreement with the relevant land-owner is concluded beforehand. This is a civil-law agreement whose content cannot be influenced by the state. Afterwards each mobile phone operator has to obtain various authorisations required under various building regulations, such as nature conservation laws and laws concerning the maintenance of the character of local sites and other rules and regulations under Provincial law.  These rules and regulations have to be adopted and executed by the Provinces.