ANACOM is working with ARME, the Cape Verdean Communications Regulator, to install a remote station on the island of Boa Vista, using software developed by ANACOM that will allow ARME to improve its spectrum monitoring system. The aim is to install this type of station on all the islands of the Cape Verde archipelago, enabling the Cape Verde Communications Regulator to optimise and complete its network of remote monitoring stations.
The inauguration of the Boa Vista station on 13 July will allow the Cape Verdean Regulator to monitor the island’s spectrum from its headquarters in Praia without having to move teams, reducing operating costs and significantly increasing efficiency through greater capacity and speed of action.
The software used in this station is the same as that developed and used by ANACOM in Portugal, and has been made available to ARME free of charge as part of the cooperation protocol signed between the two Regulators.
The Cape Verdean Regulator is also already using the system used by ANACOM in Portugal to measure the quality of service of mobile networks from the user’s point of view.
The exchange of knowledge, experience and the provision of technology used for supervisory activities has been a constant feature of cooperation with CPLP and has contributed definitively to the harmonisation of procedures in the “Lusophone world”, made up of the CPLP member countries, in the field of supervision and, in particular, spectrum monitoring and quality measurement of mobile networks.
In addition to Cape Verde, ANACOM has already carried out similar cooperation activities this year with Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor. In all cases, studies have been carried out in the respective countries on the quality of service of mobile networks from the user’s point of view.
In fact, mobile coverage monitoring and quality of service studies have been one of the areas of greatest interest to the regulators in these countries, and in several cases ANACOM teams have travelled to the field to share knowledge and experience, enabling the technicians of these regulators to acquire on-the-job knowledge.
Training technicians from the electronic communications regulators of these countries in the use of spectrum monitoring and control equipment has been another area in which regulators have requested ANACOM’s cooperation.
ANACOM is also frequently called upon to help resolve specific cases of interference in mobile networks (whether 2G, 3G, 4G or, potentially, 5G).
Other areas in which regulators are requesting ANACOM’s cooperation to provide technical training to their staff include radio broadcasting surveys, fixed service surveys, digital terrestrial television measurements and aeronautical mobile service interference resolution. These are areas of particular interest to the National Regulatory Authority of Guinea-Bissau (ARN-TIC).
For its part, the National Communications Institute of Mozambique (INCM) requested a technical exchange from ANACOM to train its technicians in areas such as electromagnetic field assessment and interference resolution, in addition to the abovementioned mobile network quality studies.
In the case of Timor, the Timorese Communications Regulatory Authority (ANC) also focused on mobile coverage studies. More generally, at the request of ANC, ANACOM is sharing its views on the organisation of its surveillance teams and, in particular, their interaction with the other areas of ANC.
Also in the framework of the CPLP, two meetings were held in Lisbon with the Brazilian regulator ANATEL, covering issues such as access to infrastructure, the functioning of the national and European legal framework for the security and integrity of electronic communications networks and services, the national implementation of the legal framework for cyberspace security, the operation of the National Civil Emergency Planning System and the Communications Emergency Planning Commission, and the security of submarine cables, among other topics.
But ANACOM’s cooperation activities are not limited to the CPLP. There are regular bilateral meetings with counterparts in other regions. Among those held this year, there was a bilateral meeting with the Netherlands Regulatory Authority (RDI) on spectrum monitoring; a visit by the Thai Regulator (NBTC) to exchange experiences with a view to the conclusion of a Memorandum of Understanding with ANACOM; and a meeting and signing of a bilateral cooperation memorandum between ANACOM and the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the body responsible for regulating the communications sector in that country.
The Chairman of ANACOM, João Cadete de Matos, and the Chairman of ARME, Leonilde dos Santos, at the inauguration ceremony of the remote station on the island of Boa Vista, where software developed by ANACOM is used.
Implementation / testing of the station before actual deployment at the final destination
In the near future, all remote stations in Cape Verde are expected to be equipped with “ANACOM software”.
