The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) today organized the opening ceremony of the 19th meeting of the Arab Spectrum Management Group (ASMG) currently being held in Doha from February 15 - 19, 2015. The meeting invited the participation and the presence of representatives from the ministries and organizations concerned with radio communication sector in the Arab countries.
Qatar is hosting the ASMG meeting in coordination with the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States, the Telecom Bureau for Communications under the Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the International Federation of Amateur Radio, and the International Society for Mobile Networks. Additionally, a number of Arab telecommunications and satellite companies are also participating in the meeting.
The meeting is premeditated to work on the WRC-15 Preparatory Conference to be organized in Geneva, from March 23 to of April 2, 2015, ahead of the 15th World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) that will be held later this year. A key objective of the meeting is to study the draft report of the Preparatory Conference which was recently issued by the ITU. The draft report is a result of four years of extensive studies which includes work done in the sector by administrations of relevant countries as well as their sub-groups and committees. This work has led to a uniform initial position for Arab countries in relation to the conference agenda items and provides documentation about the unified Arab view for the next conference.
The WRC is considered one of the most significant conferences organized by ITU. This conference, organized every four years, discusses several important issues related to spectrum, including procedures and regulations of the usage of spectrum and its applications in relation with the most advanced technologies and techniques that enhance the growth of the telecom sector.
The ASMG meeting in Doha also includes coordination sub-meetings with a number of other regional groups, in order to exchange views and understand their positions on the conference agenda items before the official participation in the conference; as well as the follow-up developments on the process of coordination taking place between the relevant administrations in the Arab countries under the auspices of ITU and the Arab States Broadcasting Union, that are correlated to the conversion to digital terrestrial broadcasting.
It is worth mentioning that the ASMG was formed on the basis of the resolution No. 77 issued by Arab Telecommunications and Information Council of Ministers (ATICM), that called for the harmonization of stances on the main topics raised and discussed in the international conferences, through the ASMG, that acted as a permanent task force that would manage all affairs related to frequency spectrum. It convenes periodically prior to and after conferences. The first ASMG meeting was organized in December 2001.