U.S. Government, Industry Aim to Rein in Mobile Interests in ITU-R Group

Among the concerns is the working party’s meeting schedule, which includes “too many meetings in exotic places,” said an industry participant in the study group on terrestrial services, which oversees the IMT working party. During the four-year term that ended in 2007, the working party met in Edinburgh, Scotland, Busan, S. Korea, Berlin, Shanghai, Geneva, Quebec City, Helsinki, Bangkok, Biarritz, France, Denver, Yaounde, Cameroon, Kyoto, Japan and Seoul, South Korea. Most ITU-R meetings take place in Geneva.

Scheduling meetings in Geneva can be difficult because of the working party’s size, wrote working party Chairman Stephen Blust of AT&T to the 2007 Radiocommunication Assembly. That’s “hogwash,” a U.S. industry participant said. Working party participants say the far-flung meetings relieve ITU of financial and logistical pressures, a participant said. “Also, it should be noted, hosting a meeting… with a few hundred participants provides a major positive impact on the local economy,” Blust wrote.

Supporters of the globetrotting said it involves developing countries with the technology. But those who take part once don’t get involved in the work, an industry participant said. A January 2007 meeting in Cameroon attracted 57 African delegates from 15 countries, Blust wrote. Many had never before attended an ITU-R meeting, he wrote.

The travel required makes it difficult for developing countries, broadcasters and officials from regional groups CITEL or the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations to regularly attend the meetings, officials said. Countries with deep mobile industry pockets can keep up the pace, though even participants from some U.S. companies and foreign governments and companies have trouble keeping up.

The IMT work could be scaled back until technology and spectrum issues are back on the World Radiocommunication Conference agenda, an industry participant said. The working party is defining a process for a new class of technologies called IMT-advanced, which will be considered during the 2011 Radiocommunication Assembly.

A U.S. proposal to merge the IMT work back into the land mobile services working party was resisted by European administrations and mobile operators at a February meeting and remains unresolved. About ten years ago, the IMT work was spun off from land mobile services and given priority status, an industry participant said. “Intel strongly supports the U.S. proposal as being best for the industry, the efficient working of the ITU-R, and Administrations, especially developing ones,” said Mike Chartier, the company’s director of spectrum policy.

Canada opposes combining working parties, based on industry needs, said Cindy-Lee Cook of Industry Canada. Merging them would create problems for administrations that can send only a few representatives to meetings, an official said. A proposal from Germany, France, Sweden, Finland and other European countries strongly supports a separate IMT group, said a European participant. Merging IMT with land mobile services might result in a meeting with 500 people, the source said.

Merging the groups would be a bad signal about the emerging IMT-advanced process, a European participant said (CD March 14 p10). In the merged group, IMT would be on the same level as amateur service, he said. Support for the merger comes mainly from the U.S., with support from Syria and Iran, but for different reasons, he said. “This is a very strange coalition.” Vietnam and Tunisia also favor the U.S. idea to merge the groups, an industry participant said.

Administrations are concerned about IMT’s isolation and want it better integrated with other ITU-R groups, an industry participant said. Holding related meetings in the same city at the same time helps resolve spectrum sharing and coexistence issues, an industry participant said.

The IMT working party meets next in June in the United Arab Emirates, and then in October in Asia. A cluster of all other terrestrial services meeting starts in Geneva 10 days after the Asia meeting, requiring some business and government officials to spend extra weeks and expense on the road.

Over objections from Ericsson and AT&T, the U.S. will press for regional support when CITEL countries meet April 22 to 25 in Washington. “Ericsson and the others are absolutely livid,” an industry participant said. Brazil and Argentina may support the U.S. action. Motorola supports the realignment, an industry participant said.