Page 65 - Lighting & Sound America (December 2019) Magazine

The Radiocommunication Assembly (RA) and World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) met this year at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

was emphasized. At such times, wire- the proposal from the United States Telecommunications
less microphones are the front end of was ratified with only minor edits. Commission (CITEL), which took
a broadcast chain that delivers life- Resolution ITU 59-2 now instructs the place in August. CITEL is a regional
critical information to the public. ITU to post a publicly accessible data- coalition for North, Central, and South
Regional and global harmonization is base of links to the relevant regulatory America that forms ITU proposals
essential for cross-border, sponta- information regarding wireless micro- with consensus from the Americas.
neous, newsworthy events and will phones from the UN member nations. It’s noteworthy that Canada recently
benefit any production team that It also calls for charts and other docu- finalized a proceeding that largely
operates internationally. mentation that will aid in harmoniza- harmonizes wireless microphone
If consensus for a proposed ITU tion of permitted frequency bands operation with the United States,
contribution is gained within the US among countries. including portions of the 941.5 —
delegation, it is submitted to the ITU The next step is to encourage 960MHz band. Also, an invitation to
for debate, possible refinement, and other countries to contribute their provide the information for the ITU
(hopefully) adoption by the entire 200- information for inclusion in the ITU database was distributed to the
plus members of this UN agency. database. The ITU only accepts infor- member nations attending WRC-19.
International approval of a contribution mation about a country if it comes This is all part of a grassroots effort
is an extremely high hurdle because it directly from that country’s adminis- by a wide variety of stakeholders with-
is scrutinized through the ears and tration. Wide international participa- in the content-creation industries.
eyes of the gamut of global view- tion throughout the four-year study Milestones such as this resolution
points. The US proposal for Resolution cycle leading up to the next RA and would not have been achieved without
ITU-R 59 was vigorously debated dur- WRC in 2023 will be a key element to the backing of individuals and associa-
ing the Radiocommunication harmonization. Towards that goal, an tions who included their names in
Assembly, with points raised by many informational technical paper was industry petitions or, better yet, wrote
administrations, including the Russian presented through the US State to the FCC, the State Department, or
Federation, Japan, Germany, United Department delegation to the confer- their elected officials directly.
Kingdom, and Australia. In the end, ence of the Inter-American

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • December 2019 • 65