Agenda item 8 Deletion of country footnotes

Here is the drill …. >to consider and take appropriate action on requests from administrations to delete their country footnotes or to have their country name deleted from footnotes, if no longer required, taking into account Resolution 26 (Rev.WRC ‑ 07) All Resolution 26 says is … urges administrations 1 to review footnotes periodically and to propose the deletion of their country footnotes or of their country names from footnotes, as appropriate

Deletion of country footnotes Australian Position … >Australia supports administrations taking the initiative to propose deletion of their country names from footnotes or the deletion of country footnotes to the Table of Frequency Allocations in Article 5 of the Radio Regulations, if no longer required, as consistent with further resolves 2 of Resolution 26 (Rev.WRC-07). >Australia does not support use of this agenda item to facilitate the adding of country names to footnotes or the addition of new country footnotes. Requests by administrations to add their country name to existing footnotes is a separate matter to be dealt with by a WRC.

Deletion of country footnotes A standing agenda item  The matter was dealt with in Committee (COM) 6 and Working Group (WG) 6A.  There were many contributions to WRC-15 on this agenda item – including administrations adding their names to footnotes  COM 6 developed and approved (through plenary) Document 142 (Rev.1) based on the approach undertaken at WRC-12 on the same issue142 (Rev.1  However, at WRC-12 proposals adding country names to footnotes were not accepted (rightly) under this agenda item.

Deletion of country footnotes >WRC-15 COM 6 and WG 6A took a different interpretation and entertained such contributions. >This created difficulty where the adding of a country name invoked the possibility of interference to countries already allocated in a relevant frequency band of the Table of Frequency Allocations in the RR. >Where an administration wanted its name added to a footnote in a frequency band that was the subject of consideration under an existing WRC-15 agenda item, the contributions were referred to the relevant Committee dealing with the agenda item >Where no such criteria was applicable country names being added to existing footnotes was dealt with in COM 6, under agenda item 8.

Deletion of country footnotes >The approach adopted or interpreted under COM 6 and its WG was also problematic for other agenda items >While the process was flawed, in terms of COM 6 issues under agenda item 8, Australia had no conflicts and >there were no issues of substance that affected Australia’s interests where Australia’s name is included in existing RR Article 5 footnotes considered by the Conference.