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Today, the Union’s Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) is charged with developing and overseeing a huge and growing range of wireless services, from aircraft aviation, weather forecasting digital TV to broadband mobile telephony.

In a rabbit-warren of corridors and offices in a creaky Cold-War era wing of ITU’s Geneva headquarters, a 150-strong team of radio engineers, satellite specialists, software developers and technical support staff spend much their time poring over arcane charts, figures and technical diagrammes. At first glance, it’s hardly ground-breaking stuff — yet the calm, dispassionate atmosphere belies the fact that this anonymous cluster of offices serves as the seedbed for some of the world’s most advanced technologies.

As the executive arm of ITU’s Radiocommunication Sector, the Union’s Radiocommunication Bureau (BR) is the keeper of the Radio Regulations, the binding international treaty that determines who uses which part of the radio frequency spectrum for what. In lay terms, that means ensuring that using a mobile phone doesn’t interfere with FM broadcasting stations, maritime communications, air traffic control or the 40-odd other services — both familiar little-known — that rely on interference-free radio links.

Covering fixed and mobile terrestrial radio services, satellite systems, analogue and digital radio and TV broadcasting, transportation navigation and communication systems, meteorological monitoring, space research and even amateur radio, today’s Radio Regulations extend to more than 2 000 pages of texts and charts whose meaning is near-impenetrable to non-experts.

But for those charged with developing and deploying radio systems, these weighty tomes — which this year celebrated their 100th birthday — make for essential reading, prescribing how equipment and systems must operate to ensure peaceful cohabitation between the many services jostling for elbow-room in today’s increasingly overburdened airwaves. The Regulations define which parts of the spectrum can be licensed for which specific uses in different countries and regions worldwide.

Their sister document, the Master International Frequency Register, serves as the global bible of spectrum assignments, With demand for spectrum for a growing range of wireless applications at an all-time high, the Register currently includes more than 1.265 million terrestrial frequency assignments, and more than 390 000 satellite-related assignments serving some 400 space networks and 50 000 assignments related to 3 700 satellite earth stations.

Industry expertise

Through a membership comprising 191 nations and a list of private sector companies that reads like a roll-call of all the leading players in wireless technologies, ITU-R is uniquely placed to build global consensus on the way the world shares its spectrum resources.

But the Radiocommunication Sector’s role extends way beyond that of a mere administrator. Through its seven technical Study Groups and dedicated committees focused on special issues, ITU-R is the anvil on which are forged the global technical standards that serve as blueprints for tomorrow’s wireless equipment and services.

Study Groups are made up of a cross-section of voluntary experts drawn from industry and government worldwide. Through regular meetings, members hammer out the technical nuts and bolts of new technical standards that define the operational characteristics of radio equipment and services and agree on technical recommendations that serve as for the regulatory decisions made on the use of spectrum. These globally-agreed standards are not just vital to ensuring new equipment complies with operating provisions laid out in the Radio Regulations, they’re essential to helping manufacturers achieve economies of scale and seamless interoperability that’s essential to market success in today’s increasingly competitive, interconnected world.

A few examples of emerging products and services based on ITU-R Recommendations include broadband mobile telephony, digital TV systems, long-range WiMAX wireless links, and soon-to-be-launched internet, messaging and voice services for airline passengers. The latter, based on new-generation avionics, will complete the mobile telephone’s global conquest by extending mobile roaming to the skies. But that’s just the beginning. ITU-R is already working to extend its IMT-2000 framework for 3G mobile telephony to support higher bandwidth multimedia services.

Currently known as IMT-Advanced, the project has become one of the Radiocommunication Bureau’s key priorities, according to Fabio Leite, Deputy to the Director of the Radiocommunication Bureau. “The IMT-Advanced working group is a very dynamic, energetic team that’s making solid progress in defining an evolutionary path from today’s multimedia-capable systems to tomorrow’s true high-bandwidth networks supporting fully-fledged broadband applications,” he says.

The new framework is also expected to take account of new-breed technologies like mobile WiMAX, which, through its ability to deliver relatively affordable mobile broadband services, could play an important role in bridging the ‘digital divide’ that currently separates communications users in the developed world from the millions who struggle with limited access to modern technologies in developing countries. That, combined with the potential for new business opportunities for operators, has already led some in the industry to predict that mobile WiMAX could ‘do to the internet what mobile telephony has done to voice communication.’

The strong push from the industry to garner support for IMT-Advanced could see technologies like mobile WiMAX successfully integrated into the IMT-Advanced working framework within a year or so, says Leite, adding that lobbying has already begun for new spectrum allocations at the forthcoming World Radiocommunication Conference, scheduled for late 2007, to support IMT-Advanced applications.

Digital vision

Another of the Sector’s major achievements of late has been the creation of a cross-regional plan for the full digitalization of radio and television broadcasting throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Agreed by the Regional Radiocommunication Conference held in Geneva in May-June of this year, the plan will create new distribution networks and expand the potential for even more wireless innovation. That’s because the flexibility inherent in digital broadcasting systems supports mobile video, internet and multimedia, paving the way to applications like Handheld TV Broadcast (DVB-H) mobile interactive radio and TV, and more.

The greater spectrum efficiency of digital broadcasting — roughly six times better than today’s analogue systems — will also translate into ‘digital dividend’ that frees up precious spectrum for other services by allowing many more broadcasting channels to be carried on “fewer” airwaves.

With a target date for complete phasing out of all analogue broadcasting services of 2015 —coinciding with the United Nation’s Millennium Development goals — the BR is now working hard to develop a full range of tools, such as software platforms, electronic forms and the like, that will ensure smooth implementation of the plan throughout all countries of the regions concerned.

Global forum

As if that weren’t enough to keep the BR busy, 2006 has also seen a concerted effort to lay the groundwork for the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-07), the treaty-making meeting that gathers together several hundreds of delegates from around the world to review and take binding decisions on a full range of radiocommunication- and spectrum-related matters.

Normally held every three to four years, next year’s event promises to be a whopper, with an agenda touching on just about every current radio service. Work for the Conference Preparatory Meeting, scheduled to take place in Geneva in February, has already generated a 500+ page report designed to help focus discussions on the key issues that will face WRC delegates later in the year.

Leite says major agenda items this time around will include debate over the need to review the current fixed satellite service plan; increased spectrum requirements for IMT-Advanced; new HF-based broadcasting services; and a look at the regulatory framework governing spectrum planning.

If that seems a rather dry basis for four weeks of discussion, don’t be fooled — most WRC habitués are already steeling themselves for plenty of late-night sessions. While there’s a good deal of support for IMT-Advanced and a general willingness to try to accommodate emerging new data services in the HF (shortwave) bands, discussions around the politically-charged issue of satellite orbital allocations is sure to generate plenty of sparks.

In one camp: supporters of the status quo whereby nations retain the right to a number of orbital ‘slots’, reserved some 20 years earlier, regardless of whether they have any concrete plans to use those slots for satellite services. In the other: those campaigning for a review of the system in order to free up unused space that could be given over to deployment of new services by those who need it. “There’s a great deal of spectrum involved, mixed in with questions of national rights and the needs of the developing versus the developed world,” notes Leite. “These are complex issues, so it’s likely we’ll face an uphill struggle to resolve matters to everyone’s satisfaction.”

Debate over the very nature of the international regulatory framework governing radiocommunications, of which the Radio Regulations is a key part, is another thorny issue. While the system of allocating fixed amounts of spectrum in certain bands to certain services has worked well in the past, new technologies are now challenging the validity — and sustainability — of this approach. WiFi, spread-spectrum systems, Ultra-Wideband — these types of technologies don’t fit the current model very well. The potential need for a comprehensive overhaul of today’s framework has been under study since 2003, he says, with next year’s WRC expected to take a decision on whether further action needs to be taken.

Market-driven delivery

If technical challenges abound in a fast-changing, increasingly wireless world, operationally, the BR has never been in better shape. The backlog of coordination requests for satellite systems — long a thorn in the side of the Bureau — has finally been cleared, while a revised cost recovery system for satellite coordination seems and the introduction of time-tracking seem to have resolved earlier problems of charges clearly disproportionate to the amount of work involved.

Moreover, Bureau’s standards approval process has been honed to a sliver of its former self, with just three months needed from submission of a final text by the relevant Study Group to formal approval.

“All the challenges now lie in the technical domain,” says Leite. “It’s a very fast-moving sector, and global demand for faster, cheaper wireless services is driving technological innovation at breakneck speed. But we’re confident we have not only the skilled teams needed to help foster and support this process, but the internal systems and processes in place to ensure we’re well-placed to meet the evolving demands of the world’s markets. It may be high-pressure — but right now, there’s no more exciting field to be working in.”

Back to basics

The BR’s roots date back to 1927, with the establishment of the International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR) to deal with technical matters relating to radiocommunication. The end of world war II saw the setting up of the International Frequency Registration Board to manage the growing demand for radio frequency allocations; shortly after, inclusion of radio services in the Table of Frequency Allocations was made mandatory, and the prescriptive international treaty known as the Radio Regulations was drawn up and brought into force.

The shape of today’s Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) was defined by ITU’s 1992 Geneva Additional Plenipotentiary Conference, which restructured the Union according to its three key areas of activity. The continuing explosive growth in radio-based services continues to keep the BR’s 150-plus staff very busy indeed, as they help build consensus on global responses to tomorrow’s technological challenges and market demands.