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Most people when asked to name the communications technology that has had greatest impact on their lives in the past two decades would say, simply, the mobile phone. Nearly 5 billion people on the planet now enjoy digital cellular mobile services with tens of thousands of new subscribers added each day. It is without doubt the most pervasive communications technology we have ever seen. Now, on the horizon, is the next generation of wireless devices and services providing broadband with many more possibilities for new applications.
Digital cellular is a wireless service, but one of a very wide range of such advanced wireless services worldwide. Millions of people use 3G cellular technologies as a data service connecting their laptops on the move via dongles. Millions more consumers and businesses receive what they consider ‘fixed’ telecom services via some form of wireless broadband, whilst satellite communications and broadcasting systems beam programming to hundreds of millions of subscribers around the world.
Squeezed into the same radio spectrum are these and many more specialized and vital services: global positioning systems (GPS), terrestrial TV, emergency communications systems, communications for medical, space and radio-astronomy research, radio communications with oil rigs and ships at sea, and services to monitor the environment.
Why manage wireless resources?
Underpinning all of these different services critical to the world economy is a common global framework administered by the ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R). It’s a framework that has been built over decades to co-ordinate the use of what is an increasingly scarce resource: radio frequency spectrum. It will always be in short supply and high demand, recognized as such by the Convention of the ITU which says “radio frequencies and any associated orbits, including the geostationary-satellite orbit, are limited natural resources” and should be “used rationally, efficiently and economically.”
This means careful management, especially in a time when there is more demand than ever for spectrum by both existing and emerging services. Complicating this is the fact that spectrum usage is still decided on a national basis so must be coordinated on a country-by-country basis. In coordinating this management globally, ITU-R enables as many services and users as possible to work together without risk of radio interference, potentially a very serious problem.
As an intergovernmental, but multi-stakeholder organization, ITU is almost certainly the only agency in the world with the independence and depth of technical expertise to manage these critical resources on a long-term but fair basis. The special nature of this management gives rise to a unique international conference cycle, the World Radiocommunication Conference (see below).
Internally, ITU-R is organized operationally as a group of four Departments under the management of the Radiocommunication Bureau and its Director. The Director receives strategic input from the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), the Regional Radiocommunication Conference, Radiocommunication Assemblies, the Radio Regulations Board, and the Radiocommunication Advisory Group. For specific tasks, such as the assessment of next generation wireless technologies, expert Working Parties are established. This form of organization ensures oversight, guaranteeing input from all stakeholders is respected and at the same time that decision making is done on an open, trusted and consensual way.
Planning for the future: The World Radiocommunication Conference
Key decisions about the future of spectrum allocation are enabled through the World Radiocommunication Conference, held at intervals of about four years, and organized by ITU-R. Regional meetings also are used as a vehicle for coordination.
WRC provides essential governance for the ITU-R work and, consequently, for much of the industry. For everyone involved in spectrum community worldwide, WRC outcomes are critical, shaping the future of the entire wireless communications industry globally. Both the industry and ITU-R are already heavily engaged in official preparatory meetings for the next WRC, scheduled for January 2012 in Geneva. Topics include spectrum implications for next generation 4G wireless technology and more efficient spectrum usage and harmonization worldwide.
Specifically, the WRC functions as the guiding authority for administration of the Radio Regulations, the key intergovernmental treaty of the ITU covering administration of the radio spectrum and related issues worldwide. Under WRC authority, the Radio Regulations may also be reviewed and revised, if necessary. The WRC has wide-ranging authority and can, if it so chooses, address any issue of radiocommunications worldwide. The WRC may also direct and instruct the activities of the Radiocommunication Bureau and Radio Regulations Board into specific activities and suggests suitable topics for the agenda of future WRCs.
Mobile phone technology is available to billions of people, but it continues to develop with newer and better technologies making it possible to deliver richer and more diverse applications to handheld devices everywhere.
ITU-R is intimately involved in this evolution, critical to the ICT industry and important for the world economy. ITU-R has been the prime move worldwide in setting standards for advanced wireless communications, known in the industry as the IMT Recommendations. In particular, IMT standards specify how the radio part or air interface of these sophisticated systems should operate. Using a common set of technical standards of this kind means different devices with the same interface can interoperate everywhere ensuring wireless communications enjoys economies of scale globally, but also that valuable spectrum resource is used most efficiently.
With IMT, IMT 2000 represents the set of technology standards that we know commercially (and relatively loosely) as 3G. Building on its worldwide success, ITU-R continues to oversee its further refinement. Since 2002, ITU-R has also been working on configuring standards and planning the technology roadmap for the next leap forward: IMT-Advanced, which will provide so-called 4G services.
4G is a relatively loose term for next generation mobile broadband. It does not officially exist yet and will not until standards (called Recommendations) are ratified. But IMT-Advanced is expected to provide a major increase in the data rates that can be handled on mobile devices. In turn, this will open the door to new and better services of all kinds, including broadband multimedia and fast data access. Experts say it will approach the same sort of user experience that fixed broadband services currently offer.
IMT-Advanced technology is expected to deliver peak useful data rates ranging up to 100Mbps for mobile use, and 1Gbps for stationary use, dependent on the technology configuration used and spectrum available. Efficient use of spectrum will be key for IMT-Advanced to deliver this very high performance. IMT-Advanced technologies will also have to meet certain requirements including worldwide functionality, roaming capability and compatibility and interoperability with other radio access systems.
ITU-R has worked intensively to set out a clear roadmap for this technology and its requirements in consultation with stakeholders worldwide . At present, after an open invitation issued by ITU-R to the wireless community, six candidate technologies for IMT-Advanced have been submitted to ITU-R for consideration and adoption as Recommendations.
The candidates are based around either the 3GPP LTE Release 10 and beyond (LTE Advanced) or IEEE 802.16m technology architectures. They are currently being studied by fourteen independent evaluation groups representing all stakeholders in the industry under the direction of ITU-R Working Party 5D which coordinates work on IMT-Advanced. ITU-R will report on the suitability of these technologies to be classed as IMT-Advanced after review on a technical and commercial basis. Final decisions on the Recommendations are expected in 2011.
1Constitution of ITU: Chapter VII - Special Provisions for Radio, Article 44
2Resolution ITU-R 56 defines relationships between IMT-2000 and the new technology IMT-Advanced. ITU-R has produced substantive market studies and development roadmaps in Recommendations ITU-R M.1645 and ITU-R M.2072.
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