ITU Proposals Aim to Enhance International Radio Regulations
BRUSSELS -- ITU members have focused on modest improvements in the international regulatory framework for some terrestrial services in WRC-12 preparations, an official said Thursday at a workshop on European objectives. A Canadian proposal suggests bigger changes but requires additional study of the effects on other provisions, according to a May impact study by the Radiocommunication Bureau. Participants in ITU-R and the European Conference of Postal Administrations are settling on making no changes in satellite service definitions in the conference preparatory talks.
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A WRC-12 agenda item calls for action with a view to enhancing the international regulatory framework, namely the Radio Regulations, said Lilian Jeanty with the Radiocommunications Agency in the Netherlands. A WRC-03 resolution revised in 2007 called for studies on four possible approaches: (1) Keeping the current practice. (2) Changes to service definitions. (3) Substituting one service for another. (4) Combining services in the radio regulations to form composite services. Countries broadly supported the work, Jeanty said.
The resolution said the same radio technologies can increasingly be used to deliver similar data rates and quality of service in systems operating in different radiocommunication services and with either a primary or secondary status. Interest in enhancing the international regulatory framework “is understandable,” Jeanty said, referring to the ever rising length of the provisions. “Their complexity is enormous.”
There’s a question of where “the killer application” to improve the regulations is, Jeanty said. Proposals made so far wouldn’t greatly reduce the number of pages in the regulations, she said, and attention is drifting from the work. Discussions after WRC-07 focused on approaches, Jeanty said. One view was to fix only anything broken, she said. Another approach was to try to make the Radio Regulations “future-proof,” Jeanty said. That prompted further questions on whether to investigate possible improvements by band or first set principles, then look at the entire subject. Discussions since have focused on three areas within ITU and between European administrations, Jeanty said. One is on general allocation issues, a second is on terrestrial, in particular fixed and mobile convergence, and the third is the satellite convergence, she said.
A new resolution has been developed for general allocation issues, Jeanty said. It has some principles such as on allocating frequency bands to the most broadly defined service, allocating bands on a worldwide basis, limiting exceptional cases while accounting for the impact of frequency allocations on climate change and bridging the digital divide, she said. A European proposal on terrestrial issues suggested adapting the definition of fixed service to clarify the scope of applications already allowed, Jeanty said. The objective was to spur notification of fixed-wireless access stations, she said. An alternative proposal from Canada limited the definition of fixed service, but made a lot of changes to other definitions, she said. The BR impact study on the two proposals showed that the European proposal resulted in few consequences for other regulatory provisions and coordination procedures, Jeanty said. The proposal doesn’t involve a lot of changes, costs or possible negative effects, she said.
The alternative proposal’s suggested changes in definitions for the fixed and land mobile service “would have an impact on a number of elements in the international regulatory framework,” the BR study said, so “further thorough analysis of the regulatory provisions, which are potentially affected by the proposed changes, would be necessary.” A long debate on satellite convergence in ITU-R concluded there’s no need for change, Jeanty said. ITU-R participants think there’s sufficient flexibility within the Radio Regulations, she said. There could still be a case for a converged satellite service, said Jim Connolly with ComReg in Ireland, referring to a proposal to the 1992 World Administrative Radio Conference that might have been ahead of its time.
Similar proposals were made on the possibility of allocating the fixed-, mobile- and broadcasting-satellite services in satellite bands and then to look at the effects band by band, Jeanty said. “This proposal didn’t make it.” She was referring to the size of the commitment needed for the change and studies that indicated it would reduce efficiency. The work and a preparatory report for WRC-12 will be discussed at an ITU-R meeting later this month.