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Africa regroups to assert position on spectrum allocation

Africa regroups to assert position on spectrum allocation

Poor participation by the African bloc in efforts to champion the continent's best interests concerning spectrum allocation at the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) has inspired renewed effort.

Mortimer Hope, Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs, Africa at the GSMA says the 2016 Mobile 360 Africa meeting on WRC 2019 was organised in order to encourage continuity and the allocation of resources for WRC preparations, which require adequate planning because they are costly and time consuming.

"The reason why we decided to host this workshop is that over the years we've had WRCs where African participation outside of governments has been very low. Governments have been well represented, but the private sector, civil society and others have just had very low participation rates or even nonexistent - especially from civil society. We are trying to sensitise people to say how important the WRC process is so that people can get involved and start planning."

Aurelie Adam Soule Zoumarou. Senior Policy Manager, Africa at GSMA says the continent did fairly well at WRC15, although much more can be achieved with a plurality of voices.

"We succeeded in allocation of more spectrum for IMT during WRC15. We got 587 MHz additional spectrum for IMT more than the other regions and this is because the African region had been vocal about the need for spectrum and the expectations for future use (around spectrum). There were forty different agenda items to cover during the last conference which were not limited to mobile services, but included others like analytical services. 5G spectrum was discussed and it was captured in a new agenda item for the 2019 conference which will consider the bands to be studied for future IMT services. WRC decisions and discussions impact the industry and in my opinion there is a need for mobile industry to assess the future need for spectrum and to assess the optimal release timing so that we can plan accordingly with regulators and policy makers."

The Mobile 360 workshop also took place in anticipation of the first African Telecommunications Union (ATU) Preparatory Meeting in Cameroon next week, ahead of the 2019 WRC.

Preparatory work

ATU Secretary General Abdoulkarim Soumaila says the meeting will consider the key lessons from WRC15, ATU and ITU preparatory work plan for WRC-19, proposals for mutual licence and type approval recognition as well as identify preliminary views on WRC-19 agenda issues.

The Preparatory Group teams for WRC-19 will also be appointed during the meeting in Yaounde.

Shiletsi Makhofane, Head of Sub-Saharan Africa Government and Industry Relations at Ericsson says vendors want to contribute towards the ATU meeting and other forums, because many of the participants from other parts of the world have decided on their positions years ahead WRC19.

"I think it is key for the industry to ensure that we have more spectrum to deliver broadband, that we are ready for 5G, IoT and to make the billions of connections that need to happen into the future."

Sheregen Padayachee, Executive Head for Technology Regulation at the Vodacom Group has echoed the call for more wider and meaningful participation at WRC19.

"I think participation is often overlooked from an operator's perspective because traditionally we are focused on the ground. We concentrate on deploying the network and bringing services to the people, but in the longer term it is spectrum and the frequencies that we depend on in order to bring services to life. A lot of operators are not actively involved and I think it is a travesty because we need to look ahead into the future to determine what we need in order to sustain the business and this is where it comes from."

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