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Preparations for the WRC-97 by CITEL

by Bruce Gracie, Senior Adviser, International Organizations,
Telecommunication Policy Branch (Ottawa, Canada)

A working group of the Inter-American Telecommunications Commission was established shortly after the 1995 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-95) for the purpose of generating harmonized views among the CITEL member States of the Americas Region. Under the chairmanship of Cecily Holiday (United States) and vice-chairmanship of Félix Castro Rojas (Colombia), efforts have been focused on developing a consolidated report on the preparations for the Conference, which has been divided into nine chapters corresponding to the WRC-97 agenda items. Each chapter includes summaries of the views of the countries of the Region and is overseen by coordinators appointed for this purpose representing a broad cross-section of these countries. The positions which have been established also take into account the perspectives enunciated by the associate membership of CITEL from the private sector.

Key objectives representing the concerns and interests of the countries of the Region include the following:

• the determination of effective measures to alleviate the problems associated with overfilings/paper satellites, pursuant to Resolution 18 of the Kyoto Plenipotentiary Conference (1994);
  
• the need to ensure that the integrity of the 1983 broadcasting-satellite service (BSS) Plan for Region 2 is not adversely affected through amendments to Appendices 30 and 30A;
  
• the desirability of addressing the issues associated with the maritime mobile and maritime-mobile satellite services in an expeditious manner;
  
• the determination of measures to enhance the sharing arrangements between existing services, particularly the fixed and mobile services, and the mobile-satellite services utilizing geostationary and non-geostationary satellite orbits;
  
• the desirability of converting from regional to global allocations to promote the interoperability of satellite services worldwide;
  
• the need to make provision for new technologies forming an integral part of the global information infrastructure including fixed service broadband applications in frequencies above 30 GHz;
  
• the need to finalize the simplification of the Radio Regulations in a manner which protects and promotes users’ interests by ensuring the necessary flexibility in the notification and coordination of space and terrestrial radiocommunication services.

In developing harmonized views among the countries of the Americas Region, efforts have been undertaken to reconcile the CITEL positions to the maximum extent possible with those of other countries and regional groupings. The CITEL member countries are of the firm opinion that the success of WRC-97 is dependent at least in part on the efforts to reach common understandings if not consensus on as many topics as possible prior to WRC-97. CITEL invites other regional groups to continue inter-regional consultations both prior to and during the Conference and looks forward to the continuation of cooperative arrangements in this regard.

This text is an extract from ITU News 8/97