CRA Provides Radiocommunication Support for World Touring Car Championships and Qatar Ladies Open

The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) has met the substantial radiocommunication requirements of Losail Circuit Sports Club for the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) and, Qatar Golf Association for Qatar Ladies Open (QLO) 2016 with temporary frequencies assignments. CRA approved 404 different types of radio equipment such as walkie-talkies and wireless cameras with 81 different frequency channels.

The WTCC takes place in five continents, and the Race of Qatar at the Losail International Circuit in November 25, 2016 concludes the season. QLO is being staged at the Doha Golf Club from November 23 to November 26, 2016 with over 100 world-class players on the course. CRA played a major supporting role in the organization of the two events in line with its national mandate of managing scarce resources such as the radio spectrum.

CRA issued 31 notices for a range of violations; the most common being shops selling mobile phones without a valid license. The notice entails the non-compliant shops to regularize their license or to obtain the right license if they do not have one. If the appropriate licenses have not been obtained, CRA is empowered to take legal action against the defaulters.

Large-scale events typically require the use of the radio spectrum for activities such as broadcast coverage, surveillance, managing spectators and security, and high-quality radiocommunication within assigned bands of the radio spectrum is essential for smooth operations.

CRA met the needs of the organizers within a short time period and extended its full support for the timely release of imported equipment shipped to Qatar in cooperation with the concerned authorities.

In 2016, CRA met the full radiocommunication needs of all large sports events held in Qatar and assigned a total of 441 temporary radio spectrum frequencies and approved 2,770 items of radio equipment for use across nine sports championships. In addition to WTCC, and Qatar Ladies Open 2016, CRA supported UCI Road World Championships Doha 2016, MotoCross Championship 2016, Qatar MotoGP 2016, Commercial Bank Qatar Masters Golf 2016, Cycling Tour of Qatar 2016, Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2016, and Qatar Total Open 2016.