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IARU WRC-03 Final Report from Geneva
The 2003 World Radiocommunication Conference concluded its
discussions of the issues on its agenda on Thursday afternoon,
3 July, after marathon Plenary sessions that tested the
patience and stamina of the conferees. The previous day's
deliberations did not end until 3:30 AM; Thursday's business
began at 9:00 AM and finally concluded at 3:30 PM without a
break, 3-1/2 hours behind the original conference schedule.
Now that the final reading of texts submitted to the Plenary is
finished, the Final Acts are being duplicated in print and on
CD-ROM for distribution on Friday, 4 July. Delegations that
wish to do so will be submitting declarations and reservations.
The signing ceremony will take place on Friday afternoon, 4
July. Thus the four-week conference draws to a close. Please
refer to IARU releases dated 11, 26 and 23 June for reports on
the previous weeks' activities related to Amateur Radio. They
are available on the IARU Web site at
http://www.iaru.org/rel030611.html,
http://www.iaru.org/rel030616.html, and
http://www.iaru.org/rel030623.html respectively.
The big news for radio amateurs is that there will be a
dramatic improvement in the 40-meter band! After weeks of
debate and efforts to resolve great differences between
numerous proposals, including strong positions for no change,
the conference agreed to shift broadcasting stations in Regions
1 and 3 out of the 7100-7200 kHz band and to reallocate the
band to the amateur service in those two regions. The
allocation in Region 2 of 7000-7300 kHz remains exclusively
amateur. The broadcasting band in Regions 1 and 3 will become
7200-7450 kHz and in Region 2, 7300-7400 kHz. The change will
take effect on 29 March 2009, less than six years from now - a
relatively short time by ITU standards.
In Regions 1 and 3 the 7100-7200 kHz band will become
exclusively amateur on that date. A footnote containing the
names of countries that are mainly in Region 3 and the Arab
States makes the band also available to the fixed and mobile
services in those countries on a primary basis.
It was not easy to achieve such a positive outcome on this
issue. As late as Thursday evening, 26 June, it had not been
possible for the delegates to reach agreement on a broad
outline for 7-MHz realignment. While those favoring change had
been able to merge their differing proposals to some extent,
there were still three schools of thought: 200 kHz for amateurs
in Regions 1 and 3 (to align with the amateur allocation in
Region 2), 100 kHz (partial alignment), and no change. In the
meetings addressing the issue, those advocating 200 kHz were
the most numerous and active. Still, it was apparent that the
no-change advocates were also numerous. The no-change
administrations and those that wanted to do something for the
amateur service, but could not support the full 200 kHz we were
seeking, tended to be inflexible. Some of the latter envisioned
very long transition periods - in one case, 30 years!
The time-honored way in which decisions are made in the ITU is
by reaching consensus in a way that makes everyone equally
unhappy. Since the discussions in drafting groups, Sub-Working
Group 4C1, and Working Group 4C had not made progress toward a
consensus, and since the same was true of several other issues,
on Thursday evening the conference chairman, Dr. Veena Rawat of
Canada, brought together a number of delegates and regional
coordinators to solve these problems. In the case of 7 MHz, the
outcome was a proposed compromise that was brought to Committee
4 the following day, Friday, 27 June. The key elements of the
compromise were described in last week's report. It provided
100 kHz for amateurs in one stage, with the possibility of
trying for the additional 100 kHz at the next conference.
Still, many differences remained as to the timetable, how to
mitigate the impact on other services, how much (if any)
broadcasting should be expanded in Region 2, and so on.
Unfortunately, the workload of Committee 4 was such that the
proposed compromise could not be discussed in the committee. A
last-ditch effort to bridge the differences was undertaken on
Monday evening, 30 June, in an Ad Hoc Group of the Plenary
chaired by Alan Ashman of Australia. The initial results were
not very encouraging; there was some convergence, but a few
administrations refused to go along. It was not until the
following day that real progress was made toward a
comprehensive agreement on a formula that all of the advocates
of change, along with some of those favoring no change, could
live with. This was accomplished by almost constant
communication among the regional and national coordinators who
were handling the issue, and as a result of their willingness
to give ground in order to package an agreement.
The agreement was presented to the Plenary at 11:00 PM Tuesday.
The discussion consumed an hour and ten minutes of precious
meeting time and included expressions of great unhappiness from
the Arab Group and Iran, who continued to advocate no change.
Still, the conference chairman was able to guide the Plenary to
a very tentative and fragile agreement, subject to the
completion of a couple of details.
The coordinators worked hard on Wednesday morning to complete
the details and a document was available to the delegates that
evening. Finally, on Thursday morning it was presented to the
Plenary and, with a few on-line edits and the addition of some
country names to footnotes, it was approved. Even the Arab
Group and Iran accepted the final package, which included
footnotes giving them some flexibility with regard to their
fixed services.
And so, at 10:27 AM Geneva time Thursday, 3 July, the
compromise package was given final approval.
Perhaps the magnitude of what has been accomplished for radio
amateurs can best be explained this way: Never before in the
history of radiocommunication has an HF broadcasting band been
shifted to accommodate the needs of another service. Of course,
this is not simply an accomplishment of the IARU. It would not
have been possible without the cooperation of a number of
broadcasters and many, many others. The people who worked with
us who are not radio amateurs -- including some who were
strongly opposed at the start but who acceded to the compromise
--deserve much of the credit. For example, Australia came to
the conference with a strong "no change" position and had to
shift its position dramatically in order to embrace the
compromise. The Russian Federation announced it was for no
change at the beginning of the conference, but in the end fully
accepted the formula for change. The Republic of Korea and
Japan supported 100 kHz for amateurs in Regions 1 and 3, but on
a shared basis with fixed and mobile and with an implementation
date of 2015; accepting a much earlier date and with just a
footnote for fixed and mobile represented major concessions for
them.
Of course, it was our friends who had to compromise the most
and it wasn't easy for them to do so, either. CITEL had opposed
broadcasting expansion in Region 2 but in the end accepted 50
kHz more for broadcasting to reach agreement with CEPT. The
proposal of the United States, which contained elements of the
CEPT proposal, was a useful bridge that helped bring CITEL and
CEPT together. One part of the U.S. proposal that the IARU did
not particularly care for, sharing of 7200-7300 kHz between
amateur, fixed, and mobile in Region 2, became moot when that
band segment was not realigned.
Attached is what is believed to be an accurate, but unofficial,
Table (with all footnotes that were changed or added) as
adopted. The reason it is unofficial is because there were some
edits of the footnotes made during the course of presentation
of the document and are not yet reflected in the official
conference documentation.
This result falls short of our goal of a 300-kHz worldwide,
exclusive band for amateurs at 7 MHz. We knew that it would.
ITU decisions are made by consensus. Building consensus
requires give and take. The conference could easily have
concluded that the cost to other services of even a partial
realignment outweighed the benefits to amateurs. Yet when the
dust settled, we had gained a significant improvement in the 7-
MHz amateur allocation - and on a reasonable schedule. The
incompatibility between amateur and broadcasting use of the 7-
MHz band will be cut in half; the spectrum available to
amateurs in Regions 1 and 3 will double; and the useful
spectrum for Region 2 amateurs at night will double. Amateurs
in the three regions will be able to harmonize their operating
patterns to a greater extent than has been possible in the
past, leading to greater efficiency in our use of the band.
Several members of the IARU team have been working on the 7-MHz
issue since the 1970s. Twice, in 1979 and 1992, we were unable
to get a Conference result that improved the lot of the radio
amateur. Given how precious spectrum access has become, even a
partial solution is a major achievement for Amateur Radio and
the IARU.
While it would be impossible to name everyone who helped, we
would be remiss if we did not credit the extraordinary efforts
of the CEPT Coordinator for Agenda Item 1.23, Jan Verduijn of
the Radiocommunications Agency, The Netherlands. Jan was
totally committed to finding a solution, not only for radio
amateurs but for broadcasters and the fixed and mobile services
as well. The CITEL Coordinator for the agenda item, Barry
Isherwood of Industry Canada, was equally dedicated and just as
effective in protecting the interests of his "constituents."
Neither Jan nor Barry is a radio amateur, but they certainly
deserve all the honorary status we can offer.
Agenda item 1.7.1 (Article 25): A package of revisions to the
international Radio Regulations that are specific to the
amateur and amateur-satellite services has been adopted. The
revised Article 25 takes effect on Saturday, 5 July 2003. The
complete Article 25 is attached, along with an explanation
authored by Michael Owen, VK3KI, who has guided the work of the
IARU on this issue since 1996.
Agenda item 1.7.2 (Article 19): The previously reported changes
sailed through Plenary on second reading and are approved.
Agenda item 1.38 (70 cm SARs): The 432-438 MHz secondary
allocation for satellite-borne synthetic aperture radars was
approved in Plenary.
Agenda item 1.1 (footnotes): "Footnote fever" seized some
administrations in the closing hours of the conference as they
clamored to get their country names into footnotes that had
previously cleared the committees in which the footnotes had
been considered. This is a recurring problem at WRCs; not only
do such footnotes dilute the consistency of the Table of
Frequency Allocations, they also cause the conference to bog
down in minutiae at precisely the point at which it should be
completing its work. Fortunately, the amateur service escaped
serious damage from "footnote fever" at this conference,
although it may be a problem in the future if countries want to
climb into the footnote for fixed and mobile at 7100-7200 kHz.
Future agenda items: There are two items of great significance
to the amateur service on the WRC-07 agenda that is being
recommended by the Conference to the ITU Council.
The first calls for a review of "the allocations to all
services in the HF bands between 4 MHz and 10 MHz" with a
number of exclusions, including the band 7000-7200 kHz that was
just reviewed at WRC-03. The spectrum requirements for HF
broadcasting are among the factors to be taken into account.
This could present a threat to 7200-7300 kHz, or it could
provide an opportunity for further realignment; for both
reasons it merits our close attention. Unfortunately, the
agenda item does not include a clear "pointer" toward the
desirability of trying to complete the realignment.
The second is "to consider a secondary allocation to the
amateur service in the frequency band 135.7-137.8 kHz." Note
that this is kHz, not MHz or GHz. Such a low-frequency
allocation is in the common table of frequency allocations used
by European administrations, and Canada has been pressing for
such an allocation in the international Table.
It's Over! Well, the work is over; the ceremonial closing of
the Conference will occur on Friday afternoon, 4 July. Then we
will all be heading home, except for those who are staying for
a two-day meeting to plan the preparatory work for WRC-07. Yes,
it's all beginning again..
73, David Sumner, K1ZZ Secretary, IARU For the IARU WRC-03 Team
3 July 2003
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