WRC-12 Day 22, 13 February 2012 – 4th and final week

With most of the committees having finalised their work for elevation to the plenary sessions, most of the work today was in Committee 6 (COM 6). Briefly, the work of the top committees is carried out in 6 languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish and, from time to time, problems arise in the translation of documents. While the Editorial Committee does an excellent job in applying literal translations, the true meaning of statements sometimes become lost. This was the case on Monday morning whilst discussions on the future work of ITU-R became bogged down on interpretation issues. After 40 minutes of interventions and counter interventions, plus the session running 10 minutes into the lunch break, a document was finally referred back for “off line” discussions.

During the afternoon session of COM 6 the draft agenda for WRC-15 and the preliminary draft agenda for WRC-18 was approved and sent to the Plenary session. With the exception of the UAE, who reserved their position, there were no objections to the amateur service proposal for a 5MHz allocation. The evening session dealt with the approval of the Resolutions associated with each agenda item.

Possible threats to the amateur services are contained in agenda items from the Earth Exploration Satellite Service at 10GHz, Mobile Satellite Service between 22 and 26GHz and the Radiolocation Service (automobile applications) at 77.5-78 GHz. These items will need to be followed in the relevant ITU-R study groups during the next few years.

The rest of the week is devoted to Plenary sessions. Watch this space.

Category: WRC-12