COVID Complicated Work on Technical Studies Before Next WRC
With preparations well underway for the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference, starting Nov. 20 in Dubai, officials from the State Department, FCC and NTIA said they must work together, especially on issues on which industry disagrees, like use of the 7-15 GHz band for international mobile telecommunications (see 2304240049). Officials warned the COVID-19 pandemic complicated work on the technical studies that are critical to WRC, during an FCBA webinar.
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The ITU’s recent Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM), which approved technical studies for WRC, was “very difficult,” said Charles Glass, chief of the International Spectrum Policy Division in NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management. Typically, most countries don’t participate in the CPM, he said. “COVID changed all of that,” he said. “We went to a virtual environment for a lot of our meetings and a lot of people who would not normally participate participated.”
There was a lot more “wrangling” than normal, and many agenda items grew rather than shrinking as they normally do, Glass said. “We were not able to have the typical dialogue that you would have behind the scenes … prior to the CPM,” he said: “It gave us a good preview of what we can expect at the conference, of what the likely difficult issues are going to be.”
“This was probably the most difficult CPM I’ve ever been to,” said Dante Ibarra, the FCC’s WRC director. “In terms of trying to refine the methods for each agenda item, we saw an increase of new methods being added. We saw an increase in divergent views being added to the CPM “which, again, is not the expected outcome.”
Ibarra said he blames COVID. Many of the technical studies were done on Zoom “with virtual discussions,” which made it “difficult to understand each other, as opposed to a discussion where we’re sitting in the same room,” he said.
WRC happens only every four years and there’s a good reason for that, said Kelly O’Keefe, State Department foreign affairs officer. “It takes some time” to prepare, she said.
The FCC gathers industry views and NTIA the views of the federal agencies, Glass said. “Then we come together, and we reconcile those views for development of U.S. proposals,” he said. “We work together to the extent possible” and when difficulties emerge, the State Department sometimes has to “adjudicate,” he said.
Glass noted he has worked with Ibarra for 20 years. “We try to work together so that we’re on a common path,” he said. The WRC itself tries to resolve issues through consensus and there hasn’t been a vote on an item in all the time he has been involved, Glass said: “It has come close a few times. There will always be issues that are decided the fourth week, in the last few hours before the closing of the meeting.” Glass said someone in the U.S. is interested in each issue raised at the WRC.
“We can’t forget” that proposals have to be based on technical studies, including on sharing and coexistence, Ibarra said. U.S. technical analysis “is the basis for how we come up with our eventual U.S. positions and ultimately our regulatory proposals to the conference,” he said.
“The conference tends to give everybody something, and that is really at the end of the day what you negotiate -- what will be that something,” Ibarra said. “If an administration comes in with a proposal that’s very well supported by technical studies, it’s very likely [they’ll] get what they want,” he said. “If someone comes in with a proposal that has very little study or rationale behind it, they may get something, they may not.” The world regions are still largely finalizing positions, officials said. Glass said delegates know about four weeks before WRC what issues will be the most difficult based on proposals from other administrations.
The next critical step is the upcoming Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) meeting, officials said. “It’s important to get countries behind your proposal” and CITEL gives the U.S. support of 26 other nations, Ibarra said. “That’s very important,” he said.
The regions are still finalizing their positions, O’Keefe said. “Negotiations tend to be very region focused -- understanding where our region is on certain issues is quite important to our success,” she said. The technical work leads to “this very political negotiation,” she said.
O’Keefe said it’s important for Anna Gomez, who's heading the U.S. delegation, to go to a lot of regional meetings and meet with officials from other countries “to understand their priorities, to share our own priorities,” she said. Gomez is considered a leading contender for the open seat at the FCC (see 2305020001).