The ITU-R Conference Preparatory Meeting CPM11-2 took place in Geneva from 14 to 25 February 2011. The meeting agreed the Report on technical, operational and regulatory/procedural matters to be considered by the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-12) that will be held next year from 23 January to 17 February 2012.
The CPM was attended by more than 1000 participants, representing more than 100 Member States and around 69 Radiocommunication Sector Members including international organizations. It considered 160 contributions.
Broadcaster’s contributions
Broadcasters contributed with World Broadcasting Union inputs on agenda items 1.4, 1.13, 1.15, 1.17 and 1.22. For EBU Members agenda item 1.17 is crucial. This agenda item concerns sharing studies between the mobile service and other services in the band 790-862 MHz to ensure the adequate protection of services to which this frequency band is allocated. In the past the EBU has shown that the effect of cumulative interference from mobile cellular networks into broadcasting services is more serious that the interference from individual cellular phones. The request made to the CPM was looking for adequate identification by the ITU BR of mobile stations that should be considered in order to take account of the cumulative effect of interference. The CPM agreed to include the option of developing an ITU-R Recommendation describing a methodology that Administrations can apply to take account of such effect.
Next steps
In the coming months, Broadcasters will need to discuss with their Administrations the importance of the cumulative effect of interference if they want to ensure protection of broadcasting services. An article on this was included in Tech -1 4.
In addition, the broadcast industry will need to develop a clear position concerning agenda items for the subsequent WRC to be held in 2015 or 2016. Proposals for even more spectrum allocations for IMT applications have been already been put forward by USA and China; similar proposals are on hold in CEPT discussions.
For further information on WRC-12 preparations and CPM11-2 results, consult our wiki pages http://workspace.ebu.ch/display/ecsrap/WRC-12+preparations and http://workspace.ebu.ch/display/ecsrap/CPM11-2 (both pages open to EBU Members only).