WARC-79 : World Administrative Radio Conference (Geneva, 1979)

 

The 1979 World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC-79) remains one of the most significant conferences in ITU history. Decisions made at WARC-79 were ground-breaking at the time and remain important to this day. At the end of eleven weeks of strenuous work, the representatives of ITU Member countries adopted the new Radio Regulations. Of the approximately 15,000 proposals put forth 12,000 concerned frequency allocation. The resulting Final Acts of the conference comprised of a volume of more than 1000 pages.

WARC-79 was an inter-governmental conference whose decisions, having the force of an international treaty, still continue to have a decisive influence on the development of all types of radiocommunications and broadcasting to this day. This radio conference was the first one in twenty years to examine and completely modify the main document of the radio sector, the Radio Regulations, in order to meet new challenges of rapidly changing radio technology and to provide a better sharing of spectrum and orbit resources among developed and developing countries.

The main results of the WARC-79 were:

• a substantially modified the table of frequency allocations and the associated procedures designed to facilitate the application of these modifications
• development of new approaches to facilitate access to the spectrum by the developing countries
• decision to convene conferences for planning space services and short wave broadcasting services
• agreement on the expansion of the shortwave spectrum allocated for broadcasting
• adoption of major changes in the frequency allocations for the space services

Many of the decisions taken at WARC-79 are still applicable to this day, including:

• regulation the world´s radio spectrum and satellite industry
• setting the standards that improve operation through cooperation
• working hard to bridge the digital divide

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