ITU's Regional Radiocommunication Conference - RRC-06 (2nd session)
Geneva, 15 May to 16 June 2006
3rd week's report
1 Introduction
The Conference's 3rd week started with more optimistic results than the previous ones, following the second iteration of the frequency plan, although these results are still not satisfactory.
Several bilateral meetings where held between the several countries for Administrations to prepare the plan's third iteration, which will take place in the weekend of 3 and 4 June.
The Conference for the Review of the 1961 Stockholm Agreement (ST61) made great progress and adopted the text of the Agreement during the Plenary meeting.
2 Works' progress
2.1 Planning process
The plan's second iteration took into account around 79,000 requirements (2,641 less than on the previous iteration) and 4,2 million administrative statements.
| VHF | UHF | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T-DAB | DVB-T | Total | DVB-T | |
| Assigned | 8,151 | 5,599 | 13,750 | 51,222 |
| Not assigned | 2,295 | 2,803 | 5,098 | 9,005 |
| Total | 10,446 | 8,402 | 18,848 | 60,227 |
| % assigned | 78.0% | 66.6% | 73.0% | 85.0% |
| % not assigned | 22.0% | 33.4% | 27.0% | 15.0% |
Although more optimistic than the previous ones, the results of this second iteration are still not satisfactory.
Results' variation by country continues to be considerable: some countries in Europe already accomplished all their requirements; others have less than 50%.
It is expected that, at the third iteration, results will reach a satisfactory level for most of the countries.
However, many problems still exist in the central Mediterranean area, and efforts are being made to find a solution, under the guidance of the Chairman of the Planning Committee.
The following schedule was established for the plan's third iteration:
1 June: submission of the modified requirements; and
2 June: submission of administrative statements.
2.2 Text of the Agreement
Although the controversial issues concerning articles 4 and 5 mentioned on the 1st and 2nd week's reports remain unsolved, some progress was made regarding the development of the text of the Agreement. At the level of the working group, article 1 of the Agreement was approved, regarding the definitions, with the exception of the transition period. The text for the Title and Preamble of the new agreement were also approved. The Plenary already adopted article 2 and articles 6 to 11, in line with the European Common Proposals (ECP).
Annexes to the Agreement:
Annex 1 (Plan's Structure) was agreed upon at the level of the working group. Annex 3 (Characteristics to be submitted according to articles 4 and 5) and Annex 6 (List of other primary services) were not ended yet. The purpose is to end all these Annexes (1, 3 and 6) next week.
The Plenary also reached an agreement on the chapter of Annex 2 (Technical criteria) regarding information on propagation.
Lastly, some progress was made on the other three chapters, concerning these definitions, technical criteria and compatibility with the other services, although not yet ended at the level of the working group.
2.3 Review of the 1961 Stockholm Agreement
The Conference for the review of the 1961 Stockholm Agreement (ST61) is ongoing in a very positive way. The Plenary already adopted the text of the Agreement and a Recommendation on the suspension procedure of article 4 of the ST61, regarding the changes to the Plan.
Committee 4 already ended the work concerning the regulatory text.
