TIGHTER ITU BUDGET HAS RIPPLE EFFECT ON WRC PLANNING

Amid tighter budget restraints, industry and govt. officials may be forced to choose more carefully which issues they push for agendas at future WRC conferences, with increased consideration of how leaner ITU would be able to provide staff for carrying out proposals, several sources said. One of most visible effects is that post-2003 WRC meeting that typically would have been set for 2006 now had been put off to first half of 2007.

Effects of ITU budget cuts on WRC planning came up at WRC Advisory Committee meeting at FCC last week. “We are in a whole new and different environment as we are preparing for the next WRC,” said Audrey Allison, chmn. of Informal Working Group (IWG-7) for FCC’s WRC Advisory Committee (WAC), at Thurs. meeting. Resolution approved at Plenipot included “new dimension” for WRC process that stressed consideration of financial and resource implications of proposed agenda items for future conferences. Resolution cited existing ITU Convention, which requires WRCs to estimate financial implications of proposed agendas. Plenipot resolution underscored that point by directing administrations -- “to the extent possible” -- to include indication of financial impact of agenda items, including preparatory studies and decision implementation involving ITU’s Radiocomm Bureau. Allison said at WAC meeting that only one WRC was scheduled between 2004 and 2007 -- following June 9-July 4, 2003, one in Geneva -- and next one would have been in 2006, although ITU is flexible enough to allow more time. At WAC meeting, Allison, dir.-Americas regulatory affairs for Connexion by Boeing, said ITU Radiocomm Sector’s budget was cut $7.3 million (7.7%). “The implementation of these reductions will no doubt affect the preparatory process for WRC-07,” said memo from IWG-7, which covers regulatory issues and future agendas.

One apparent reason for scheduling next WRC after 2003 in first half of 2007 is because ITU has 2 other major international conferences in 2006, making it challenging to hold all 3 in same year. One possibility explored before Plenipot had been that WRC meetings could be scheduled as far as 7-8 years apart, but proposal to that effect wasn’t approved in Marrakesh, sources said. How ITU will absorb budget cuts is expected to become clearer at annual ITU Council meeting next year. Directors of each ITU sector will have to decide how to implement reductions, such as through cutting back on meetings or not doing certain projects, one source said: “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“To the degree global spectrum allocations are important and to the degree global spectrum rules are important, lengthy delays between WRCs are disappointing to industry and consumers,” said Washington attorney Scott Harris, former FCC International Bureau chief. “It seems to me that the ITU is spending its time and money on all the wrong things,” he said, citing resources that union pours into additional conferences that are less directly relevant for consumers and industry: “It’s typical and disappointing.”

To extent ITU’s budget crunch could limit overall work plan for WRC, “ultimately the private sector is probably going to have to pick up the slack on this,” said Bradley Holmes, ArrayComm senior vp-regulatory and govt. affairs. Holmes is former State Dept. dir. for international communications and information policy. What that could mean is that standards bodies would have greater responsibility in some policy areas that have been part of WRC, he said. Holmes and others said factors affecting ITU budget could point to both slowdown in global economy and reactions to concerns by some administrations that ITU was overreaching in terms of policy areas it wanted to explore. “In addition, it may also be a situation where the ITU needs to think like many private corporations, that it needs to run a leaner and more efficient organization,” he said. Holmes said he would prefer to have WRCs held more, rather than less, frequently. “Technology is changing at an incredibly fast pace,” he said: “If you start talking about today’s technology versus 6 months or a year from now, a lot can happen.” While Holmes said it would be better to have WRCs on shorter rather than longer time cycles, he said, “the trade-off is the budget and can the ITU afford to have them more frequently than every 4 to 5 years?”

WRC meetings previously had been held every 5 years, for example in 1987 and 1992, with later goal to move them to every 2-3 years. One challenge of frequency of every 2 years is that it opens possibility of “agenda creep,” said Brian Fontes, WAC chmn. and Cingular vp-federal relations. That means participants could be tempted to put off certain issues to next meeting “and over time it becomes a rather extensive agenda” that would build up, said Fontes, who headed U.S. WRC delegation in 1995. “If you know that the meetings are every 3 or 4 years, there is more likely to be an actual selection of the most important and critical issues to get resolved,” he said.