A UAE National as a Vice-Chair of the ITU 4th Radio-communication Study Group
The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) headed the UAE delegation to the World Radio-communication Conference 2007 (WRC-07), which continued for four weeks and took place at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The conference proceedings were finalized last November.
In this respect, H.E. Mohamed Al Ghanim, TRA Board Member & Director General, stated: “The WRC takes place every three to four years to discuss mainly the requirements of the ITU 191 Member States, as well as the requirements of the 700 Members in the Special Sectors with respect to various implementations of the radio-communication sector and vital radio services; where the participants this year reached the number of 29 thousand from 160 countries, which is considered the highest number of participants encompassing a variety not preceded before, since the first World Telegraph Conference in 1906 in Berlin, Germany. The TRA headed the UAE delegation participating in the WRC, which included a number of UAE governmental and non-governmental bodies such as the UAE Armed Forces General Headquarters, Emirates Media, Etisalat, Thuraya, and YahSat, where they played a major role in the success of the delegation in acquiring such positive results.”
In his turn, the head of the UAE delegation, Eng. Tariq Al-Awadhi, Director of Spectrum Affairs at the TRA, said: “This conference worked on resolving a variety of sensitive provisions within the conference schedule, including fixed and mobile wireless services such as the IMT, the HAPS, the flights mobile service, and the marine and aviation services for flights, amateurs and radio. The conference also reviewed the fixed satellite plan and other issues that are considered vital for the different relevant parties in the UAE; where the outcome of the conference came to serve the interests of the Arab Group in general and the interests of the UAE in specific.”
Al-Awadhi continued stating: “The participation of the UAE team has been very successful, where each team member defended the standpoint of the Arab Group with respect to the 13 provisions delegated to the team by the Arab Group under the directions of the TRA, to follow-up and coordinate during the conference. The positive results, however, were due to the accurate follow-up of the UAE Team in preparing for the conference all throughout the past four years within the UAE National Committee in charge of preparing for the WCR-07. Among the successful results by the UAE delegation is specifying and appointing different spectrums for the IMT, or what is known as the 4th Generation (4G), where the conference defined different spectrums for the 4G that would provide a wide capacity for mutual usages in the future; bearing in mind that this specific provision consumed a large portion of the conference proceedings that resulted the last day to continue till the early hours of the morning due to the differences of opinion among the member states. In the end, however, a decision was taken that met the satisfaction of all relevant parties; still, more decisions were taken including marine, amateur and fixed satellite services.”
Al-Awadhi concluded: “Two of the most important achievements for the UAE were the ITU adoption of the Arab Group nominee Eng. Nasser Bin Hammad, Manager for Spectrum Coordination at the TRA, to be the Vice-Chair of the ITU 4TH Radio-communication Study Group, which is responsible for the space services activities for the coming four years until the next WCR in 2011 (WCR-11); Bin Hammad has also been appointed to chair a working group during the conference related to some schedule provisions. The Arab Group nominee Eng. Nasser Al-Rashidi, the TRA Representative to the ITU, has also been adopted by the ITU to be the Reporter of the 3rd Chapter of the Preliminary Meeting for the four coming years until WCR-11. Further, the UAE also headed a number of sub-active teams that were in charge of following-up some details related to some difficult provisions during the conference.”
Commenting on the sensitive positions given by the ITU to the UAE Nationals, Eng. Nasser Bin Hammad and Eng. Nasser Al-Rashidi, H.E. Mohamed Al Ghanim, said: “Such choices by the ITU are the results of the work of the TRA in implementing its vision in the importance of developing its national cadres to become experts in the ITU affairs, including the ITU constitution, agreements, implementations and radio regulations; where the ITU, although one of the United Nations (UN) integrated bodies, but has been established long before the UN in 1886.”
