Every time you turn on your radio, hop on a plane, call home on your mobile phone or tune into a TV weather channel, you're using one of the vital services the ITU's Radiocommunication Sector helps coordinate worldwide. Since the beginning of the 20th century, ITU has taken the lead role in managing the growing global demand for radio frequency spectrum and negotiating the global technical, operational and regulatory guidelines for the use of frequency spectrum, and later, of the satellite orbits. Its work paves the way for telecommunications growth through the deployment of new and expanded services which generate further capacity for new technologies.

Managing the global radiocommunications framework

Radiocommunications technology helps provide a variety of services that many of us take for granted, including:

• TV and radio broadcasting

• Deep space research

• Meteorology and environmental monitoring

• Global positioning systems

• Navigation systems for ships and planes

The ITU Radiocommunication Sector manages the framework which enables these vital services to work across the globe, and in such a away as to ensure equitable access and rational, efficient and economical use of the radio frequency spectrum. The framework has to address the needs of a fast-changing world, an undertaking especially challenging now as new wireless and satellite services place new and ever increasing demands on the frequency spectrum.

ITU has responded to the tremendous growth of information and communication technologies, particularly mobile communications, and to an increasingly competitive market for equipment vendors, telcos and satellite operators by significantly expanding its range of responsibilities. Today, ITU helps:

• Allocate bands of the radio frequency spectrum, a finite resource, to specific radiocommunications services

• Assign and register radio frequencies and any associated positions in the global satellite orbit to prevent harmful interference between stations of different services and countries

• Improve the overall efficiency in the use of radio spectrum and the satellite orbit for radiocommunication services

• Determine the technical characteristics and operational procedures for a huge and growing range of wireless services

The ITU Radiocommunication Sector continues to keep up-to-date the Master International Frequency Register to ensure that each radio frequency use that could interfere with those of any other countries, is registered. The registration of a frequency allocation in the Master Register confers to it international recognition and therefore reduces the probability of harmful interference. The Register currently includes:

• More than 1.2 million terrestrial frequency assignments

• 325 000 assignments servicing 1 400 satellite networks

• More than 4 200 assignments related to satellite earth stations.

The simple updating of this register is a massive task, given the constant growth in radiocommunications services and the need to ensure that any new addition does not create harmful interference to any other use already registered.

Radio Regulations, the international treaty that governs radio spectrum

The global use and management of radio frequencies and satellite orbits requires a high degree of international cooperation. ITU drives this cooperation through its Member States in order to update and adapt the Radio Regulations, an extensive international treaty that governs the use of the radio spectrum for some 40 different services around the world. The Radio Regulations cover everything from fixed and mobile communications services, to television broadcasting and aeronautical and maritime navigation or to space research and exploration.

World Radiocommunication Conference

The only time changes can be made to the Radio Regulations is during the World Radiocommunication Conference. Held once every two to three years, this conference facilitates changes to the way radio spectrum is used and shared around the world by bringing together governments to renegotiate part, or occasionally all, of the Radio Regulations. Extensive consultations are typically undertaken with equipment makers, carriers and all major stakeholders of the wireless industry at national level, prior to such conferences. These stakeholders are also often member of national delegations at the conference. The four-week conference establishes and updates the global technical, operational and regulatory guidelines for the use of frequency spectrum and satellite orbits. The most recent WRC, held in Geneva in Summer 2003, established a blueprint for the global radiocommunication sector that reflects its current and future needs.

For more information on conference proceedings, please visit www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2003/19.html.

Building the global platform for 3G services and looking beyond

An important, recent achievement for ITU's Radiocommunication Sector was developing and gaining acceptance of the IMT-2000 global standard for cellular telephony. Built on the vision of a single, worldwide standard to harmonize today's often-incompatible regional cellular systems, IMT-2000 provides a global platform on which to build the 3G (third-generation) services fast data access, unified messaging and broadband multimedia in the form of new interactive services.

In addition to offering global roaming capabilities, IMT-2000 spurs the growth of new services such as mobile Internet with its ability to send and receive information at high megabit data rates, a huge speed improvement on the rates supported by most 2G digital networks. More than 100 3G licenses have now been awarded in over 35 countries, and by the end of 2002, more than 30 million subscribers worldwide were using 1MT-2000 standards.

As the industry moves beyond IMT-2000, the demand for seamless inter-working between telecommunication systems is expected to become more intense and far-ranging. Systems beyond IMT-2000 will comprise a multitude of telecommunication systems including 3G systems and their enhancements, WLAN-type systems, short-range connectivity systems, and broadcast systems. ITU will continue to support deployment of mobile wireless communications by recognizing the need to provide a global vision for the future development and advancement of IMT-2000. As part of this commitment, ITU will conduct further work to develop Recommendations in these matters.

Priorities

The ITU's Radiocommunication Sector's current priorities include:

• to facilitate timely coordination between various systems in both the space and terrestrial environments

• to develop spectrum regulation initiatives in order to better harmonize frequency allocations and the use of satellite orbits

• to facilitate the introduction of modern radio systems in rural areas, with special attention to developing countries, and give assistance to Member States in spectrum management activities, e.g. through training, information meetings, seminars, the development of handbooks and the provision of tools for automated spectrum management

• to reduce the satellite network filing backlog so as to comply with the time-limits specified in the Radio Regulations by the end of the current plenipotentiary cycle in 2006.