By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe Tuesday held a crucial preparatory meeting with stakeholders in the sector ahead of the World Radio Conference.
The World Radiocommunications Conference 2023 will take place in Dubai, from 20 November to 15 December 2023.
It will be preceded by the Radiocommunications Assembly which will take place from 13 to 17 November 2023.
The WRC-23 is as a result of the finite nature of spectrum which is in short supply not only in Zimbabwe but in the world.
“So, the assignment of the spectrum is not done nationally, say in one country. It is a world affair that is why we call it world radio spectrum so the whole world comes together to assign this finite resource.
“The importance of everyone coming together is to ensure that there is no interference in terms of usage of the spectrum,” POTRAZ Director General Dr Gift Machengete said.
“Because when you have interferences then you can have disastrous consequences, I always talk of one that is nearer home which happened sometime back when one of our operators here in Zimbabwe used a decommissioned equipment and because of that there was interreference and as one plane was landing in Australia the song Chitekete was playing.
“You can imagine what could have happened if something had happened while it was airborne. “So that is the importance of spectrum to try and assign to specific uses the world over so that we don’t have interreference and we use the spectrum to develop our economies that is the driver for ICTs.
“ That is the driver for economic growth unfortunately it is limited and it’s limited to all of us all as the world. That is the importance of World Radio conference which takes places every four years.”
Dr Machengete said different regions will come up with their agreed positions that give them advantage.
“In order to come up with an agreement you have this conference where every region will make their proposals and table them, so it boils down to good negotiations that is why I have been saying we need to be properly represented,” he said.
The two-day meeting in Harare will focus on Zimbabwe’s communication networks, that is Radiofrequency Spectrum, and to reimagine its possible future use in the context of WRC-23 Agenda Items.
There are four Agenda Items in the WRC23 Agenda, which aim to avail spectrum for Mobile Services in one way or another.
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