Future Agenda Items Seen as Some of Most Important at Upcoming WRC

Some of the most important decisions to be made at this year's World Radiocommunication Conference will be on future agenda items, industry officials agreed during the second part of an FCBA webinar Thursday (see 2305040086). A bifurcated approach, with separate committees developing industry and government positions, may no longer make sense in a 5G world, they said. WRC starts Nov. 20 in Dubai.

Qualcomm is most focused on Agenda Item 10, which considers spectrum for international mobile telecommunications (IMT), said Aspasia Paroutsas, vice president-federal regulatory affairs. The goal of Qualcomm and others is to have an agenda item ready for WRC-27 (see 2304240049), she said. “We want to be able to be prepared to lead as the U.S. in 6G,” Paroutsas said. To do that, it’s time to start thinking about “a home for 6G that reflects the unique technological attributes,” she said: “That’s going to consume most of my time and my interest in the next WRC.”

Lockheed Martin’s “No. 1 priority” for the WRC is “very simple,” said Jennifer Warren, vice president-civil and regulatory affairs: “preserving and advancing U.S. technology leadership in aerospace and national security.” National security is “a market as well as a government operation” and the company wants to ensure “radars can perform their missions” for DOD and for all of Lockheed’s customers worldwide, she said. The company hopes the WRC will approve a future item on lunar and cislunar communications, the area between the moon and earth (see 2209120047), Warren said: “This really allows for the U.S. to show space leadership, space technology leadership,” which has been a priority of NASA and FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

Future agenda items are also very important to Nokia, said Grace Koh, Nokia head-government affairs for North America and U.S. ambassador to the last WRC. Nokia is also focused on Item 10, she said. “We’re engaged heavily at Nokia at putting together the draft specifications for 6G, and don’t worry, everyone, it’s not coming tomorrow,” she said. 6G is unlikely to reach “commercial popularity” for another 10 years, she said.

Warren said it no longer makes sense to think about government and private sector interests as different in a world where “sharing is more the anticipated future.” In the current world “it’s not as easy to cabin interest as private sector or government, or federal/nonfederal -- there are a lot of alignments that cross those lines,” she said.

The Satellite Industry Association has a proposal to stop preparing for the WRC with a separate committee looking at commercial interests, overseen by the FCC, and the government, by NTIA, Warren said. Instead, there would be a “joint advisory committee” and both would “work immediately together rather than this phased approach that draws out collaboration and reconciliation,” she said. The FCC’s WRC Advisory Committee (WAC) would disappear. The process would unfold before the U.S. delegation is formed and may limit the amount of reconciliation the State Department does under the current regime, Warren said.

Koh agreed the commercial/governmental divide may not work much longer. Spectrum discussions need to start earlier, she said. The satellite industry already has “very close ties” to the federal government and all the capacities of 5G, from sensing to logistics, will be used by the government, she said. 5G and 6G are really about “connecting things” as opposed to people, she said.

FCC staffers are already active participants, more than just observers, in the industry working groups that do most of the preparation at the WRC, Warren said. We’re seeing “more and more” multiple views coming out of the WRC “so I think we’re actually making the life of the FCC a little harder,” she said. Finding a way to move beyond that is in the U.S.’s interest, she said.

The reconciliation process between the FCC and NTIA isn’t transparent and industry often doesn't know what the U.S. position is until it shows up at the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL), Warren said. “It’s kind of like waiting for the pope -- is it white or black smoke,” she said: “That’s part of the process I think we can work on. … We still need a little bit more transparency.”

Koh noted international companies are often involved in WRC prep in multiple nations and “many, many” dialogues are going on at the same time.