 Welcome to the World Radio Communication Conference 2023, WRC 23 here in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where I'm joined in the studio today by Tanya Villatrapala, who is the Vice-Chair of Committee 6, as well as being Director-General for Spectrum Planning for the Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones for Mexico. Tanya, welcome to the studio. Thank you for having me here. Now, let me start off by asking you about the WRC, the World Radio Communication Conference. Why is this an important event for the world in your opinion? Well, this conference sets the line to follow for all the radio frequency bands and how to coordinate among the different countries, which type of services we're going to use in each of the bands. So this is very helpful also to have the equipment that we use for telecommunications in one country, also operating in another country, or when we travel, for example. So this is such a huge event and it also sets the end of the study cycle of four years. So we've been working four years to come here and now to try to agree on the issues. Now, as I mentioned before, you are newly elected, in fact, Vice-Chair of Comm 6, Committee 6. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about the work of the committee that you are Vice-Chairing. Yeah, sure. The Committee 6 of the conference deals with issues like the resolutions, some of the resolutions that we are seeing. Also, we call it country-filled notes. That means that, for example, in my country, we use a certain frequency bands for one service. So we have to have a note with some text and some conditions that we review those here. And also, one very important issue of Committee 6 is the future agenda for the future conference. In 2027, we are starting now to agree on which issues we're going to study in four years. So this committee has to agree on which issues we're going to be studying and what will be the agenda for the conference in 2027. Now, for some people, four years would seem an extremely long time to be preparing for a conference. Why is it so long, in fact? It's actually not enough in some cases because we need to do some studies. We need to try to agree among the different regions, among the different countries. And we have more than 20 topics to look at. So all the study groups in the ITUR sector are dealing with these studies, with this analysis. So it takes time, of course, and then to try to agree on a common position in four years from now. Excellent. Now, there's been a big push for a number of years now to increase the participation of women at the World Radio Communication Conference. How successful do you think that's been? I think it has been successful. There's a network of women in ITUR, actually in all the sectors in ITU. And I have also participated in the other sectors in ITU. So I see many female colleagues now and more important in leadership positions. So, for example, in my delegation in Mexico, we are more women in the technical delegation than men. So this is new. We are also the head of delegation as a woman. So this is different that I'm sure from some years ago. And what impact do you think the outcomes of this conference will have for the future of radio communications? I think it's very important what we decided here because we also opened the door for new services to operate in some frequency bands. So if we look at the digital divide, which we still have some work to do there, then this conference will allow new services, new technologies to operate in the whole frequency bands, some new services such as satellite services that can help, for example, to give telecommunications services to the rural areas. So this is very, very important. I was going to ask you, closest at home, how has the telecommunications, the radio communications landscape been evolving in Mexico? Well, normally in Mexico, it takes a little bit longer to have the new technologies. For example, now we are starting with the 5G deployment, whereas here we are already talking about 6G. So we still have some work to do, especially because we have like two realities in Mexico. One is urban areas and the big cities. Mexico City is one of the biggest cities in the world and we have all the technology there, but we also have the rural in Mexico. We have some villages where it's very difficult to give these services because we have some isolated towns in the middle of the mountains and it's really, really complicated and expensive to give the services. So we are working on it. And what will the solution be to connect to that last mile? I think it has to be a partnership between the government and the industry because sometimes we need public policy and funds to help to bridge this digital gap. Tanya Viretrapala, thank you so much for joining us in the studio. Thanks for sharing your insights with regards to the work of the committee, but as well as what's happening in Mexico. And we look forward to catching up with you again. You know, not too distant future. Thank you so much. Thank you. And if you've enjoyed this interview, which I'm sure you will have, then please check out our other interviews on our YouTube channel as well as our podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And for further information, check out our website at www.itu.int. Thanks for tuning in.