by Don Messer, DRM Consortium Representative at WRC-07
WRC-07 is over. This memo is a summary of what happened here of interest to the DRM system. The results are very positive. I summarize the four major outcomes below.
1. No Protection Ratio agenda item for WRC-11:
The original "preliminary" agenda items for WRC-11, which were composed at WRC-03, included an item for a reassessment of the Protection Ratios in the HF bands for DRM into analog signals, vice-versa, and DRM into DRM. This inclusion was a result of my having to agree to it during WRC-03, while I was the chairman of the handling of the agenda item on digital HF, to be able to get DRM officially into the Radio Regulations in the HF bands. It was a struggle.
Well, here we are at WRC-07. It has to compose the official WRC-11 agenda, since it is now the next Conference. Not unexpectedly, there was an avalanche of requests for agenda items (initially over 150 !!), which was pruned down to about 25 by the time the approval process was completed. Needless to say, our little protection ratio agenda item from WRC-03 was buried in the snow. There won't be such an agenda item.
Therefore, we will not have to formally submit documentation during the next four years on how the DRM signals are behaving while in HF use with respect to interference to other signals. This does not mean we should ignore the topic -- only that there will not be any ITU-R requirement to do anything official.
What remains with respect to the ITU-R is the "at least 7 dB backoff". This should be observed for all regular operational broadcasts. And, of course, HFBC coordination continues.
2. No additional HFBC spectrum between 4 & 10 MHz:
This defeat was no tragedy -- I believe that. First, the week before the Conference ended, the only remaining proposal for more HFBC spectrum was the one from the CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations). It had been reduced, as a compromise, to 200 kHz additional, with the same "date of entry into force" of 2018. I had tried, unsuccessfully before the Conference, to inject the idea of a much earlier entry date, since we complain about immediate problems forcing us to go "out of band." But this got nowhere.
Fundamentally, Region 2, Region 3, the old Soviet Union republics, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Arab States stood ground for No Change. Finally, the complicated proposal from the CEPT was withdrawn, and life went on with other aspects of this complicated agenda item.
What was lost? Practically nothing. If the CEPT proposal had been accepted, the situation would have remained as it is until 2018. What would the broadcasters do in the meantime? The same as now. So, it wouldn't have been until 2018 that anything positive would have happened -- and who knows what the world will be like then?
So the "no change" folks win a pyrrhic victory. All of them can go back and get congratulations from their bosses -- but nothing has changed. Whoever has to and can will use Article 4.4 on "no harmful interference" as the escape valve for the foreseeable future. Like it or not, we will be living with the current situation that includes Out-of-Band broadcasting transmissions into Fixed Service territory, using the famous Article 4.4 on no harmful interference for an indefinite future.
3. A new Resolution to "continue studies”:
As is frequently the case when a WRC gets stuck without any real success on an aspect of an agenda item, as in rugby and American football, it kicks the ball away (punts, in American). So, with the added HFBC spectrum dead, a Resolution was created to ask the Study Groups to continue studying the issue -- amass data, find out about how digital introduction is affecting spectrum usage, blah, blah, blah. It will give some of us some "job security" in the next few years.
There is a clear cut feeling that somehow the introduction of DRM will help matters. I hope so.
4. "Tropical zone use" -- the last regulatory element of DRM use in the HF bands:
This is the real regulatory triumph for us in the shortwave band use of DRM.
At WRC-03, I was able, along with others, to get DRM accepted officially for use in the HF bands that are governed by Article 12. That is the regulation that specifies the use of HFCC-like coordination twice a year, etc. for the bands above 5900 kHz. It took a massive amount of modifications in various Articles, Appendices, Resolutions and Recommendations to get to that point, originally drafted by Ian Davey (UK) and me, with very little changes along the way.
However, none of this addressed the domestic "tropical zone" use of DRM. (These are the broadcasting bands below 5900 kHz.) This time, in modifying Resolution 517, which in its latest form comes from WRC-03, we finally got to remove any mention of single-side band signals. This is something I could not get rid of at WRC-03.
In the process, with the "stroke of the pen" we lowered the bands under consideration from 5900 kHz to 3200 kHz, thereby including the "tropical zone" bands. The suggested change sailed right through the Plenary session without any objection.
This new aspect finishes the DRM official ITU recognition in the HF broadcasting bands. It has enormous marketing potential since more than half the people in the world live in the "tropical zone," which is roughly defined as between 30 degrees North and South latitudes. Countries like Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Congo, South Africa, Algeria, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina are simply a sample of what we're talking about. (A good NVIS capability for DRM is an essential element of this application.)
(Source: NASB/Dec 2007)
