ITU Regional Radiocommunications Conference
RRC-06 (2nd Session)
Geneva, 15 May - 16 June 2006
Report on 2nd week
1 Introduction
The second week of the conference began with disappointing results following the first draft of the frequency plan.
A number of bilateral meetings were held between the various countries in order that the Administrations could prepare for the second draft of the plan which will be completed during the weekend of 27-28 May, with the following calendar set:
25 May: submission of modified requisites;
26 May: submission administrative declarations.
The Coordination and Negotiation groups had an important role in the analysis of the results of the first draft of the plan and in the adoption, for the second draft, of solutions acceptable to everyone.
2 Progress of work
2.1 Planning Process
In the first draft of the plan, 82,000 requisites and more than 2 million administrative declarations were taken into account.
| VHF | UHF | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T-DAB | DVB-T | Total | DVB-T | |
| Consigned | 7,502 | 4,831 | 12,333 | 46,333 |
| Not Consigned | 3,253 | 3,510 | 6,763 | 16,359 |
| Total | 10,755 | 8,341 | 19,096 | 62,692 |
| % Consigned | 69.8% | 57.9% | 64.6% | 73.9% |
| % Not Consigned | 30.2% | 42.1% | 35.4% | 26.1% |
The results are generally disappointing and vary considerably by country: some European countries have all their requisites satisfied while others still have 80% outstanding.
For the second draft of the plan the Administrations should not increase the number of requisites and certain Administrations are under pressure to reduce the number of requisites.
The position of the European countries is that new requisites will only be acceptable if they make up part of a commitment to improve the plan.
2.2 Text of the Agreement
Not much progress was made with the text of the agreement.
Besides the controversial material covered by articles 4 and 5 (mentioned in the report on the first week), there is also the question of the duration of the transition periods with 3 possibilities being put forward:
- A single transition date between 2012 and 2020;
- 2020 for VHF and 2015 for UHF;
- 2020 for VHF and 2015 for UHF;
A different date of repeal of the analogue plan for each of the regions of the regional Organisation officially recognized by ITU, within the planning area (CEPT 2012, RCC 2015, Arab States 2020?, Africa 2020).
Annexes to the Agreement:
Annex 1 (Plan structure), Annex 3 (Characteristics to be submitted in accordance with articles 4 and 5) and annex 6 (List of other primary services) were agreed in principle, but still await comments from the ITU-R experts.
Three of the four chapters of annex 2 (Technical Criteria) were discussed based on the European Common Proposal (ECP), while the chapter about the information on transmission was agreed in Committee 5.
2.3 Revision of the 1961 Stockholm Agreement
Committee 4 of the conference approved the text of the Stockholm Agreement, which is in line with the European Common Proposal (ECP).
