Speech by Malcolm Johnson, ITU Deputy Secretary-General
The Vision of Digital India: Commonwealth Telecommunication Union Forum
Opening Remarks and presentation during the High Level Panel : Session Chair & Chief Guest
27 October 2015, New Delhi, India
Excellencies,
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a real pleasure to be with you all here today for this session on Taking Advantage of Underutilized Spectrum – Regulatory Perspectives.
I would like to thank the organizers for their kind invitation and the excellent arrangements. My colleague François Rancy, Director of the ITU Radio Bureau would have liked to be here with you but as you know he is very busy now with the Radio Assembly this week and the World Radiocommunication Conference starting next week. He sends you his best wishes, as does the Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. Anyway his loss is my gain as it is always good to be back in New Delhi, and being originally a radio man myself it is nice to be with so many radio experts.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
ITU's mission is to connect the world.
Spectrum plays a vital role in bridging the digital divide. Let me provide you with some statistics to illustrate this:
Mobile phone networks reached a 97% penetration rate worldwide, including almost 3 billion people in rural areas worldwide, representing about 87% of the rural coverage.
When comparing it with the fixed coverage, which is approximately 16% worldwide (both in urban and rural areas) it becomes clear that the role played by mobile and wireless networks is key to achieving a universal telecommunication service.
If we look at broadband access the situation is not very different: fixed broadband penetration is near 10% worldwide, while mobile broadband reaches 32%.
However, the gap between the developed and the developing world remains large: mobile broadband penetration rates are 84% in developed countries compared to 21% in developing countries. So there is a huge challenge for the spectrum community to narrow this gap.
Every spectrum stakeholder is working hard to achieve this: manufacturers developing new technologies to increase capacity at lower cost; operators deploying more base stations to cover wider areas and offering more diverse services at more affordable prices; and regulators providing the legal framework to foster investment.
Innovative techniques such as Dynamic Spectrum Access, Cognitive Radio systems and Database Radio Systems offer tremendous potential for more efficient use of spectrum by using portions of the bands used for television broadcasting that have been identified as "TV white spaces" –spectrum available for wireless communication at a given time in a given geographical area on a non-interfering and non-protected basis with regard to other services with a higher priority. TV White Spaces offer great potential to connect rural and remote areas, providing the broadband connectivity necessary for those living in these areas to benefit from the digital world. This is why the topic of this conference is so important, especially for a country such as India where almost 80% of the population lives outside urban areas.
However, as with all innovations, once it passes the laboratory and field trials, it has to face the real and complex spectrum world. New challenges will arise which must be met to ensure that it can withstand interference whilst avoiding harming the operation of existing and planned networks that also utilize the scarce resource that is spectrum.
The broadband services provided by these new technologies must integrated and coexist in a harmonious manner with other wireless systems and services.
ITU provides the unique platform to facilitate such integration through studies in the relevant Study Groups of the Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), with the participation of all the stakeholders in the spectrum community: administrations, regulators, operators (Mobile, Broadcasting and Satellite), manufacturers, etc. This important work is complemented with that performed by the other two ITU Sectors: Telecommunication Standardization (ITU-T) and Development (ITU-D).
Next month's World Radiocommunication Conference will review and revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of the radio-frequency spectrum and the geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits. These are highly complex and technical conferences, but with the tradition of Member States striving for consensus through compromise, rather than pushing through divisive solutions on a vote, they have proved to be very successful and I am sure this year's conference will be equally successful. The main objective is to harmonize global spectrum allocations as far as possible to increase interoperability and reduce costs through economies of scale.
I would therefore like to extend an invitation to the White Space Alliance (WSA), the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance (DSA), and other associations and stakeholders involved in these amazing and vital developments, to join ITU and bring your vision and contributions to these Study Groups, to that together we can bring the benefits of broadband to all the world's citizens including those in remote rural areas.
I look forward to welcoming you to ITU. Thank you for your attention and I wish you a very enjoyable and productive Global Summit.
