Keynote address by Malcolm Johnson, ITU Deputy Secretary-GeneralCommonwealth ICT Forum'18 - Session 10: Spectrum Management - National Regulatory and Policy Issues
3 October 2018, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen
Good morning and welcome to this important session on Spectrum Management, National regulatory and policy issues.
It is a pleasure for me to be chairing a session on spectrum as I started my ITU career in the radio sector. I led the European countries at three WRCs: 1993, 1995 and 1997. The last two were probably the most contentious with huge battles over mobile satellite allocations. I am pleased to see that the result of those battles 20 years ago are finally bearing fruit with exciting new NGSO networks being launched. It was at WRC-97 that I proposed Resolution 72 which changed the WRC process fundamentally by encouraging other regions to adopt the process we had developed in Europe, to put forward regional common proposals. This makes the work of WRCs more manageable and has proved very successful. WRCs are like a very complex but well oiled machine. There are not many, if any, UN conferences where most if not all Member States sign the Final Acts before they leave!
Commonwealth coordination can be effective in the preparatory process. If Commonwealth countries agree on some common objectives they can then feed these into their own regional proposals. With Commonwealth countries influential in four of the six regions this can prove very successful.
The Radio Regulations, the only international treaty on the use of the radio spectrum and satellite orbits and is now 112 years. The treaty aims to ensure that spectrum and satellite orbits are used rationally, equitably, efficiently and economically recognizing they are limited natural resources.
It provides the regulatory stability and predictability required for long term investments in the radiocommunication sector, for services which are essential to societies and economies such as mobile broadband, television broadcasting, earth monitoring satellites, navigation systems, emergency communications and in fact every use of the radio spectrum.
Global spectrum harmonization prevents mutual interference, enables interoperability and interconnection and thereby brings down the cost of equipment and services through the economies of scale.
The preparation for WRCs is an ongoing process which involves the 193 ITU Member States and all stakeholders in the radiocommunication industry, through national, regional, and ITU consensus building processes.
The ITU-R Study Groups carry out preparatory studies involving of members of the ITU Radio Sector that includes service providers, network operators, and manufacturers as well as the Member States and compile a draft Report for the Conference Preparatory Meeting to approve as the technical basis for proposals to the WRC.
At this stage of the WRC-19 preparatory process, the draft CPM report is now ready and available online for its consideration by the CPM next February (https://www.itu.int/md/R15-CPM19.02-C-0001/en).
One of the main results expected from WRC-19 is the allocation and identification of additional spectrum for mobile broadband (5G) in bands above 24 GHz. These bands will provide higher throughputs and capacity, lower latency and higher reliability and speed than the current allocatioms in the UHF band and C-band.
That is not to detract from the importance use of the UHF. The transition from analog to digital television in this band releases a considerable amount of spectrum for mobile broadband with wide coverage at lower cost. To take advantage of this requires regional frequency coordination, and I am pleased to say ITU has helped the development of regional plans for countries in Central American and Caribbean, Sub-Sahara Africa and the Arab States.
Other allocations expected at WRC-19 include those for High Altitude Platforms Systems (HAPS) and non-Geostationary Satellite Systems. These systems offer great potential for providing connection to rural and remote areas. These systems are expected to be deployed in the coming months on the basis of the current allocations I mentioned but WRC-19 will provide additional spectrum to ensure that they will have additional capacity.
So this is a complex process, but one with an output of vital importance to the development of the technology so vital to achieving the sustainable development goals.
I am very pleased we have some leading experts on spectrum management and the WRC proceeds on the panel and so I invite them to make their presentations.