ITU’s WRC Closes In On Deals

The International Telecommunication Union‘s World Radiocommunication Conference is heading down the home stretch as it prepares to wrap up a month’s worth of work at the end of this week.

The WRC plenary, the body that has the final approval authority over spectrum deals, is considering a number of agreements that were worked out at the committee level, according to sources familiar with the deliberations there. These include an agreement to allocate an additional 455 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band for wireless devices, including wireless local area networks (RLANs), that use the Wi-Fi standard, as well as spectrum in the 5 GHz band for Earth exploration satellites and space research. Another agreement being considered by the plenary is one to lower the minimum dish size for fixed satellite services (FSS) in the 13.75-14 GHz band, in exchange for power limits to cut interference with U.S. military radars that operate in that band.

In addition, the WRC plenary has approved a worldwide allocation in the 1.4 GHz band for feeder links serving nongeostationary low-Earth orbit (LEO) data satellites, so-called “Little LEOs.”