The State has the potential to become a global hub for the development of wireless technologies, an industry worth about $55 billion (€44 billion) per year, a new report says.

Wireless Communication: An area of opportunity for Ireland says the Republic has one of the most dynamic mobile markets in Europe but needs to do more to capitalise on its advantages.

The report, which was commissioned by Forfás, says the State should focus its effort on sectors where it has built up a specialist knowledge, such as billing, security and operational systems.

Firms in the Republic could also expand into areas such as certification and hosting, a move that could potentially create a new European hub for the mobile application hosting industry.

An important weakness that needs to be addressed is a lack of collaboration between industry and the university sector in the wireless arena. Other international clusters of expertise in the wireless industry, Cambridge in England and north Jutland in Denmark, have a major academic input, says the report.

The State should also move to liberalise the spectrum management market in the Republic to encourage the development of new innovative technologies.

The report says that governments are often slow to reallocate spectrum to new firms in the face of changing conditions.

Introducing spectrum trading and change-of-use policies would encourage greater innovation, it concludes.