ITU Group Excludes Regulatory Aspects from Work on Cognitive Radio

GENEVA -- Administrations at the Radiocommunication Assembly geared up for the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference starting Jan. 23 by approving supporting ITU-R recommendations on various needed technical, operational and regulatory aspects, officials said at a press conference after the assembly, which ended Friday. Assembly agreement on studies for cognitive radio systems “excludes” regulatory matters, an executive said, but the systems will be considered under a WRC-12 agenda item. WRC-12 work on use of orbit and associated spectrum resources and a future conference agenda item on more spectrum for mobile broadband will be some of the “more difficult” WRC agenda items, said Francois Rancy, director of the Radiocommunication Bureau.

All except one of the roughly three dozen recommendations considered during the assembly were approved, officials said. Many of the studies and other work on technical, operational and regulatory aspects in the recommendations support WRC-12 agenda items, said Alan Jamieson, chairman of the assembly meeting. The single exception dealt with the leap second, said Jamieson, who is managing director of Added Value Applications in New Zealand. “It’s now up to the conference to come up to the correct regulatory and administrative decisions” on the conference agenda items, Jamieson said.

The assembly’s decision on the leap second “sets the direction … towards a continuous time standard,” Jamieson said. It allows for other technical possibilities and approaches for addressing concerns, he said. A “leap minute” was one of the options discussed to address changes resulting from doing away with the leap second, said Vincent Meens, chairman of the ITU-R study group on science services. Meens works for the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, the government agency responsible for shaping and implementing France’s space policy in Europe.

The important question is how to have, with the least intrusion on everyday life, a continuous time scale, said Meens. It is “very important” for telecom systems, he said. A leap minute wouldn’t be a continuous time scale in the long term, he said. A leap minute would be needed every 50 or 60 years, he said. Moving the time zones is an approach floated in the corridors of the meeting, he said.

Some countries wanted to make ITU-R participation by “sector” members subject to additional regulation, Jamieson said. Sector members are generally commercial entities or industry groups. The countries were reflecting a national concern into the international arena, he said. “Those proposals were not adopted,” he said. “It’s right and proper” for each country to determine what is appropriate, he said. Once an entity becomes a member, then full access should be guaranteed under ITU rules and regulations, he said.

IMT-Advanced

The importance of the work over the last four years to prepare the International Mobile Telecommunications-Advanced (IMT-Advanced) specification for the next generation of mobile gear can’t be “overstressed,” Jamieson said. “It’s very important for the ITU,” of “great importance” to administrations and even more important to users and the radio services being provided, Jamieson said.

Commercial adoption of the new specification “won’t occur overnight,” Jamieson said. It will take time for the standard to trickle down through administrations, manufacturers and into devices, Jamieson said, referring to spectrum with larger bandwidths, enhanced data services and built-in voice capability. Specifications for smart phones in use today were approved in 2000, Rancy said. A conference decision on spectrum for use by the 3G devices was made in 1992, he said.

Adoption of the IMT-Advanced recommendation “is really so important, I don’t think we should mention any other recommendation” that was approved by the assembly, Rancy said at the press conference in response to a reporter’s question on which ones were notable. “It could not possibly compare with … its importance,” he said referring to IMT-Advanced.

Cognitive Radio Systems

A Radiocommunication Assembly resolution on cognitive radio systems (CRS) “excludes” an examination of regulatory matters, a U.S. executive told us. The resolution augments ongoing work in the study groups, Jamieson said. Jamieson, in a personal view, said a WRC-12 decision other than no change would be surprising. The agenda item at WRC-12 “is going no place,” said spectrum consultant Mike Lynch. The resolution has a broad scope for comparisons by users of radiocommunication services, the U.S. executive said.

The resolution provides the ability to study how the technology might work within a service to create more efficiencies, the executive said. Russia at the WRC-12 has set some standards for coordination of dynamic spectrum access or dynamic frequency selection, he said. It’s not clear how the work will move forward because it’s driven by proposals to study groups, he said. Possible discussions on using spectrum from another service are at “another level” that the resolution doesn’t attempt to address, the U.S. executive said.

A WRC-12 agenda item in some form will be pushed off to the 2015 conference, Lynch said. “That’s the easiest way for them to get out of the WRC-12 without a big argument,” said Lynch, who is chairman of the Radio Regulatory Technical Advisory Group in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a technical liaison for spectrum aspects to ITU-R.

The resolution calls for continued studies for the implementation and use of CRS in radiocommunication services, and on the operational and technical requirements, characteristics, performance and possible benefits associated with the implementation and use in relevant radiocommunication services and related frequency bands with particular attention to enhance coexistence and sharing among radiocommunication services.

WRC-12

The continuation of WRC-12 discussions on allocation of additional spectrum to meet growing data traffic demand will be one of the “more difficult” aspects at WRC-12, Rancy said. There are some technical issues, Rancy said, referring to use of the digital dividend at Europe’s Eastern border. Interest is also growing “to have more frequencies allocated to the mobile [service] and identified for International Mobile Telecommunications,” he said.

Talks on changes to regulations for use of orbit and associated spectrum resources will also be difficult, Rancy said. Administrations are finding it increasingly difficult to create orbital slots, he said. WRC-12 will address the need to “strengthen the regulations to ensure that the rights of use of these resources … are actually used,” Rancy said. “If they are not used, they should be released,” he said.

The 2012 ITU Council decision on a proposal to revise satellite cost recovery was “to let the WRC take its decision and then discuss it again at the next council meeting in case there is a need to strengthen the regulations,” Rancy said. One administration floated to the ITU Council a proposal for satellite operators to pay to keep their rights in the Master International Frequency Register, Rancy said. “So it would be like paying every year,” he said.

Several possibilities could be used, Rancy said. One is financial due diligence, but the ITU Council is waiting for a WRC decision. A number of proposals have been made to the conference on the matter, Rancy said. “At least two weeks” will be needed to understand well the proposals of enhancing the regulations, he said.

About 3,300 delegates from 150 countries are registered to attend WRC-12, Rancy said. The number of delegates has risen 20 percent from WRC four years ago, he said. The conference has about three dozen agenda items. One agenda item on advance publication, coordination, notification and recording procedures for frequency assignments pertaining to satellite networks has about two dozen sub-issues that the conference will address.