 Welcome to the ITU studio here in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where I'm pleased to be joined in the studio today by Mr Mario Manovec who is the director of the radio communication bureau here at ITU and we're here in the radio communication assembly and about to go into the World Radio Communication Conference. Mario, welcome to the studio. Thank you, my pleasure. Let's talk a little bit about the radio communication assembly which it leads into the World Radio Communication Conference. A little bit like, I don't know if it's like the calm before the storm or at least the calm before the rain. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about how this will feed into WRC which is of course an extremely important event in the radio communication calendar. Of course. Well, the radio communication assembly is also held every four years just before the World Radio Communication Conference and its main role is to agree on the work plan or the work programme for the radio communication sector during the following four years. So the World Radio Communication Conference has to be prepared. So we have many agenda items that can only be discussed at the conference if a previous work has been developed in terms of studying the proposals on sharing spectrum and use of spectrum for various services how do they affect other services. So the only way to ensure that decisions made at the World Radio Communication Conference or WRC for short are sound is that they are based on studies that are made during the previous four years. So the radio communication assembly will agree on the work programme for the four years to prepare the following World Radio Communication Conference. So this assembly is reviewing the work that has been done during the past four years and agreeing on the work programme for the following year. This is one of the objectives. The other one is to approve the recommendations which are the standards that were developed during the past four years. If I may highlight two of them, one of them is the standard on IMT 2020, which is known as 5G. So the 5G that everybody is talking about and everybody has in their mobile phones or wishes to have comes out of the ITUR, study group 5, and it is part of the work that has been done and that the assembly is going to confirm and going to approve the continuation of this work on what will be IMT 2030 now, which is the sixth generation of mobile communications. The other one that I cannot avoid mentioning that is a source of a lot of pride for us as well is the standard on HDRTV, which has been the object of Amnemi award this year by the academy, the television academy. This is like an Oscar, but for the TV. And this is the third Emmy award that we have in ITUR, and it's the work of study group 6. So as you can see, the study groups have meaningful work done in order to, let's say, achieve the standards that are then used in radio communications around the world. And this is not less than the WRC in terms of importance, and it leads the way for a successful WRC and the way forward. So last time we spoke, we were at the ITU studio in Geneva. We're now here physically in Dubai and the preparations have all come together. I just really wanted to find out what are your impressions now that we're here physically in the United Arab Emirates. Well, it's very exciting to be here again. The United Arab Emirates have hosted all major ITU conferences but the WRC, and now they met the challenge of hosting a WRC as well. So the premises are great and all the organization is very well done. They are very well experienced in this. They know ITU requirements and how we run the conferences so everything is ready. And they are excellent hosts, so they are waiting all our participants with everything ready. And I'm sure it will be the right venue for this difficult conference to take place and to ensure good results, we hope. You mentioned it's a difficult conference. Obviously, there are lots of issues to be discussed and lots of issues to be agreed upon. What happens on a day-to-day basis at a conference such as this? I mean, is it really dotting the I's and crossing the T's? Is it arguing over one word for several hours? Because at the beginning of this week, as you say, this conference at the Radio Communication Assembly is in preparation for the World Radio Communication Conference. And already there were some concerns about working very, very late nights, etc. But I know that obviously you're a veteran of this and I just really wanted to find out what your anticipations are for the work ahead. Yes. Well, the assembly has a problem of timing because it's very short. So it's five days and we have a very long agenda so that's why we have late hours from the beginning. But it's not mainly because of disagreement. It's more because of a workload and the time allocated for that. In the conference it's different. In the conference we have a problem of agreement on various agenda items that are very controversial. And this is not particular to this conference. This has been the trend in the last conferences. And in my view it will continue to be the trend. Why? Because the spectrum is always the same. It's a natural resource that is rare, that is limited and it is not growing. So we have always the same resource. But what is growing is the amount of services and applications that we are developing that use spectrum. So we have more and more needs for spectrum while the spectrum is always the same. So that's why it becomes more and more difficult to identify and to agree on bands, spectrum bands for new services or for new applications or for new technologies that will be accepted by all because it will affect immediately another service that is working on that band. Because there is no wider spectrum today. So everything is already attributed. So we have to share. And so any new attribution will affect an existing one. So that's the dispute between services, between priorities, between industries, between government priorities I would say and between the needs of the scientific services and the earth observation services that are not commercial but they are equally important to safeguard the planet, for outer space activities, for scientific research and all the commercial ones that are much more, let's say, if you want to lobby it for. But they are equally important and they are all trying to, let's say, defend what they have acquired so far but at the same time trying to get new spectrum for new uses and new services. So this is going to become more and more the case as we go forward because humanity loves mobility. The human being doesn't want to be plugged to the wall and they want everything to be accessible wherever they want, wherever they are and whenever they want. So it will be the trend for the future as well. And looking ahead, what do you think will be the most important issues, perhaps, over the next five weeks? We will have in all areas important issues to be discussed. We will have in the mobile communications identification of new bands for AMT. In WRC 19 in Egypt we had identified for 5G. Now they will try to identify additional bands for more propagation in the mid bands for this same technology. We will have also for satellite communications. As you know, satellite communications is being experienced at revival. So now with all the non-gestational satellites we have new constellations that are being launched with thousands of satellites and many more that are in the making. So it's not only a spectrum issue, it's also a regulatory issue. The regulations that we have are not up to date with the advance, the quick advance, the fast advance of this new generation of non-GSO satellite constellations. So we have to try to update them. We have also maritime and aeronautical communications that are becoming more and more important. We have these famous earth stations in movement that are those that are in the planes, in the boats, in the trains or even in anything that moves that you want to keep connected while you move and keep having Wi-Fi and internet in the move. So for that you need an earth station that is connected to the satellite while the vehicle in which you are can be an airplane or a bus or a train moves. And this, as you can imagine, this generates a lot of complexity because the interference if the vehicle is moving moves along with the vehicle and then can reach different other services depending on the trajectory. So it's a complicated issue, but it's something that everybody wants to have. So this is another one of them. And then, as I said, the scientific services are very important. Now that we have a climate emergency on earth, we want to save our planet or somehow take more care of our planet, we need to have earth observation satellites that tell us the temperature of the seas, what happens with possible earthquakes and hurricanes. And warnings as well, early warnings. Early warning and recovery, all these things. We need special services for that and those are using specific bands because of the scientific or the physical characteristics of the earth. You have to measure these things in specific bands so you cannot just move from one to the other. So we have to protect these bands for this to be possible. So this is also going to be the object of discussion. We always have the amateur bands that we cherish. It has an historic service, but also one that today is very useful when there is an emergency, when there is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster. So radioamateurs are always ready to help. And sometimes when the infrastructure, communications infrastructure goes down, they are the only ones that remain there to help people. Well, all of those show how relevant this conference is and how important it is to the planet. And I think for all those who were uninitiated before, I think you've definitely encapsulated the momentous reasoning why this is going to take a little bit of time, basically, to discuss and to refine and to hopefully make sure that everybody is at least relatively happy by the end of this conference. All the member states that have gathered here, as well as industry and NGOs, et cetera, that will be here. But Mr Mariamanovic, thank you very much indeed for being with us again in the studio and we look forward to catching up with you again very soon. Of course, it was my pleasure. Thank you. Excellent. If you've enjoyed this interview, please tune in to our ITU YouTube channel, as well as SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts from. And for further information, please check out our website at www.itu.int. Thanks for tuning in.