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Annual Report & Accounts 1998 - 1999 |
Leading the World in Spectrum Management
Many countries are taking a close interest in how the Agency is implementing spectrum pricing and refining its licence products. The UK is probably the country most advanced in implementing administrative pricing although a few others have wider experience of auctioning spectrum. The Agency aims to ensure that its policies are open and transparent in line with the EU Licensing Directive, which was implemented in the UK at the beginning of 1998. The UK is taking an active part in encouraging other countries to look both at one-stop shopping for licences (eg for satellites) and also at more efficient processes for licensing private business radio, on which the Agency chairs a European task group supported by both the EU and the CEPT.
ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Plenipotentiary Conference
The Radiocommunications Agency led the UK delegation to the ITU's Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis on 12 October to 6 November 1998. The Plenipotentiary Conference is the supreme decision-making body of the 188-member country International Telecommunication Union and it is responsible for agreeing the ITU's four-year Strategic Plan and Budget; updating the Union's Constitution and Convention; and electing the five senior officials, the members of the part-time Radio Regulations Board (RRB) and the members of the ITU Council.
The four-week conference was attended by over 1,600 participants from 170 countries. In addition to government delegations, 98 other organisations took part including telecommunications operators, manufacturers and inter-national organisations. The conference considered many recommendations aimed at enhancing the role of the private sector in the ITU. Although some important steps were taken, there is still room for further improvements and the ITU Council was instructed to establish a working group to take this forward.
The Plenipotentiary Conference con-sidered a significant number of radio-related issues. The Constitution and Convention texts were modified to include reference to satellite networks using non-geostationary orbits, recognising the increasingly important role of such systems alongside conventional geostationary orbit systems. The RRB was enlarged from nine to 12 members, with Western Europe retaining two seats. Provisions relating to the Radiocommunications Advisory Group of the ITU (currently chaired by Michael Goddard of the Agency) were incorporated into the ITU Convention.
The interval between World Radio-communications Conferences (WRCs) was changed from a rigid two years to 'between two and three years'. It is hoped that this flexibility, which the UK had strongly advocated for some time, will enable preparations for WRCs to be completed more thoroughly and lead to more successful conferences.
The Plenipotentiary Conference agreed that the ITU should charge, on the basis of cost recovery, for most satellite network filings. All networks filed after 7 November 1999 will be subject to charges but the precise mechanism and the actual scale of charges will not be known until a working group of Council, especially established for the purpose, reports to the Council in June 1999.
The UK had a candidate in Michael Goddard, one of the Agency's directors, for the post of Deputy Secretary-General. There were three other candidates for this post. Although, after two rounds of voting, the conference elected Mr Roberto Blois of Brazil, the number of votes cast for the UK was very encouraging, especially as the conference had already elected Mr Yoshio Utsumi of Japan for the post of Secretary-General and it is traditional for the two posts to be shared between developing and developed countries. The support offered to our candidate, both from within the UK and from other countries, was much appreciated.
The UK was re-elected to the ITU Council, the ITU's management body which meets annually.
European preparations for the Pleni-potentiary Conference were co-ordinated by a CEPT Working Group, which reports to the European Radiocommunications Committee (ERC) and the European Committee for Telecommunications Regulatory Affairs (ECTRA). Michael Goddard held the vice-chairmanship of this group up to and during the Plenipotentiary Conference, and has subsequently taken over the chairmanship. The group co-ordinates CEPT positions for the ITU Council as well as for the next Plenipotentiary Conference.
 Mike Goddard, Director of Spectrum Policy and Chairman of the ITU Radiocommunications Advisory Group. |
Other ITU Activities All the specialist Study Groups of the ITU's Radiocommunications Sector have been busy preparing for the next World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC). Members of the Agency have been playing a major part in this process. The WRC itself, due to be held in late 1999, has been re-scheduled. It will now be held in May/June 2000, in Istanbul, and preparations for this very wide-ranging conference will take up considerable Agency resources during the year 1999/2000. |
The European Union
A major task for the Agency during the latter part of the year has been the preparation of the UK response to the EU Commission Green Paper on Radio Spectrum Policy. The Green Paper was published on 9 December 1998 and raised important issues about the future management of the radio spectrum at international level and about the respective roles of the CEPT and the EU. The UK response was submitted on 23 April and is available on the RA website. The Agency was also heavily involved in the preparation of the CEPT's response to the Green Paper.
The Agency is working closely with OFTEL and CII Directorate of the DTI to provide an input to the European Commission's review of the effectiveness of telecommunications legislation. In particular, the Licensing Directive and Open Network Provision Directives impact on Wireless Telegraphy Act licensing and Agency procedures. Responses to this Review from the UK will be submitted later in 1999. The Agency has also been working in close cooperation with CII on the formulation of the RTTE Directive input to the Commission, and preparing the implementing regulations.
CEPT (The Conference of European Postal and Telecommunications Administrations)
The European Radiocommunications Committee (ERC) of CEPT has had another very busy year and the Agency, which leads for the UK in this committee, has played a full part in virtually all of the activities. The Agency (Terry Jeacock) holds the chairmanship of the ERC's Spectrum Engineering Working Group and many project teams.
Much progress has been made in harmonising frequency usage and radio regulatory practices for new and existing services, together with the necessary consideration of the related spectrum engineering issues. Many new ERC Recommendations and Decisions were developed during the course of the year and the UK has committed itself to implementing most of these. Details are available from the ERO (European Radiocommunications Office) in Copenhagen.
The ERC has initiated another Detailed Spectrum Investigation, the third in the series, covering the frequency range 862 - 3400 MHz. The Agency has been engaged in producing a consolidated response.
All of the ERC working groups, and the Conference Preparatory Group, have been very active in preparing for the next ITU World Radiocommunication Conference in 2000 (WRC-2000). Although the conference itself is some way off, the size and complexity of the task of co-ordinating the views of the full CEPT membership, and integrating this with studies at the global level, is such that preparatory work started almost as soon as the last WRC finished in late 1997. As previously, it is expected that a comprehensive set of European Common Proposals (ECPs) will be developed for the conference. The Agency is playing an active part in this process, with the expectation that the UK will be able to associate itself with most, if not all, of the ECPs.
ETSIThe Agency has maintained its high level of involvement in ETSI. The Agency's Chief Executive, David Hendon, has continued as chairman of the ETSI Board and Olly Wheaton continued as the head of the UK Delegation to the ETSI General Assembly and chairman of the UK ETSI Members' Conference. Olly Wheaton also continues to chair the ETSI Technical Committee TC-ERM (EMC and Radio Spectrum Matters) and has recently assumed the chairmanship of the newly created OCG R&TTE Steering Committee, which is responsible for the management of ETSI's R&TTE programme and the STF (Specialist Task Force). ETSI has been pro-active in establishing the innovative Third Generation partnership project (3GPP), with US, Korean and Japanese partners. The 3GPP activity is progressing well and is key to the Agency's auction for UMTS licences. The RTTE Directive (Radio and Telecommunications Terminal Equipment) places a new responsibility on ETSI, requiring it to prepare candidate-harmonised standards for radio products in harmonised and non-harmonised radio frequency spectrum. The Agency fully supports this deregulatory approach (which replaces third party product certification with a manufacturer's declaration of compliance with the essential requirements of the Directive) and has committed resources to supporting the work in ETSI. Similar considerations also apply to radio EMC standards which are being revised under the Commission's SLIM initiative to rationalise their implementation as standards under the EMC Directive. |
 Olly Wheaton, Head of Standardisation Policy Unit and Chairman of several ETSI committees. |
 Peter Kerry, Chairman of RA EMC Policy Committee and President of CISPR. |
CISPR (the International Radio Interference
Committee) The need for EMC standards to protect radio services continues to grow, as changes in radio services and technology convergence make it essential that EMC standards are continually reviewed and updated. The principal international body with responsibility in this area is CISPR, the presidency of which is held by the Agency's Peter Kerry. This year the CISPR Plenary endorsed our proposal to establish a new CISPR sub-committee (CISPR/H) to deal with generic emission limits. This marks a significant change from the previous procedure in which limits were agreed on a product basis. The change will bring benefits to radio users in the longer term. In the interim, work is continuing to resolve problems arising from technology convergence issues. |
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