The Radiocommunications Advisory Group (RAG) met for the thirteenth time from 31 October to 4 November in Geneva. Some 71 delegates, representing 32 member states, nine recognised operators and the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), took part in the proceedings.
The meeting served to inform that the Council has decided to modify Decision 482 on the payment of processing costs for satellite network notification files and to revise the payment calculation method, and also to extend it to recovery of the inherent costs of processing notifications under Appendix 30B and of notifying assignments in planned and unplanned bands.
The group studied a draft of the Strategy Plan, Operational Plan and Financial Plan of the ITU Radiocommunications Sector (ITU-R) for the four-year period 2008-2011 and took note of a proposal to introduce a structured mechanism that will enable clear and commeasurable identification of the aims, results, activities and resources needed to fulfil the ITU-R mission. The RAG deemed the approach to be efficient and endowed with metrics indispensable in the Union?s current context of economic cutbacks. This issue will be debated at the next session of the ITU Council.
Lastly, the RAG was informed that the Council had decided to change the dates of the Radiocommunications Assembly and the World Radiocommunications Conference, to 8-12 October 2007 and 15 October-9 November 2007, respectively. In this regard, the Arab countries expressed their intention to again raise this subject in the Council as they hold that their interests were not considered; they are seeking an additional two-week postponement to prevent the two events from coinciding with the Ramadan period.
The next RAG meeting has been scheduled for 24-26 January 2006.
