 Welcome to the World Radio Communication Conference 2023 WRC 23 here in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for I'm very pleased to be joining the studio by Irene Kaguasewankambo who is the Director of Engineering Communications and Infrastructure for the Uganda Communications Commission. Irene, welcome to the studio. A pleasure to be here. No problem, my pleasure, thank you. Now I'd like to start off a little bit of course by asking you why is this particular event important to you? I know you're no stranger to ITU events but why is the World Radio Communication Conference important for you to be here? As a developing country or as any country for that matter we all need, you know, for many people they forget that anything wireless is all about frequencies. Now we have an industry where everybody's trying to be innovative, everybody's creating everything so how do you make sure there is order? And as a regulator of course order for us is very key. The World Radio Conference gives us that opportunity to say this is how we're going to use this band. This is how we're going to use this set of frequencies because as a developing country I don't manufacture most things, I depend on importation and when you have economies of scale then the things are cheaper for my people so it pays when we have that coordination externally because then the industry knows what services, what equipment is going in what bands and makes the work of us regulators a lot more easier to handle. So that whole what I have to do at the national level is also mirrored at the international level in terms of the coordination with other countries in terms of coordination among the services and at the end of the day you know to the less techie we are always sounding like those people what are they doing there but that's all we're doing making sure we harmonize ourselves, we agree and coordinate on what is done in what band. You mentioned here of course you're here from a developing country which means of course the only way is up but the challenges of course are also married by opportunities as well and I just would like to just ask you a little bit about what are those in Uganda what is the landscape like for radio communications currently like? Oh I love that you asked that question you know when back in the day when I joined Uganda Communications Commission we were looking at ourselves as being disadvantaged because we didn't have many fixed connectivity many people didn't have fixed lines we just had around 30,000 people in the whole country that had telephone lines and we're thinking when will we catch up? So in a country where you want to make sure you know for us that living no one behind is a reality for us how do you make sure you're going to connect to everybody? We'd love to have fiber to every home but I'm talking about a country that has people yes who can afford it others are in grats, touched house so even optical fiber is a joke to them and you're just saying you want to connect them you have the hills, you have the forest, you have the lakes you know the mountains how do you provide connectivity to that? This conference is actually very key to us because as a developing country wireless communication becomes such an opportunity to leapfrog and the different technologies like satellites you know for us mobile was such a game changer for us because we were able to come from those 30 lines to now 32 million subscribers in a country that has 40 years of course then you're like oh you're almost connected everybody because I have almost 52% of my population below the age of 18 but yes when you have the realities of such a country then indeed the wireless technologies give us an opportunity to make that reality of having every Ugandan participating in the economy leaving no one behind enjoy broadband services telephony radio that's why we've almost held the whole world back in terms of FM radio because for us now these are key opportunities to make it a reality of leaving no one behind And tell me what about the outcomes of this conference are there any particular outcomes that you would like to see come from this? Oh there are many but of course there are those priority ones and as I said one of them I feel like Christmas came early just this week because for many of us you know we've been talking about every country wanting to have orbital slots and orbital resources but for many of us that was no longer possible in terms of the resources we had so in 2019 we celebrated when Resolution 559 was passed and that seemed like now a reality So Revolution 559 for those who are uninitiated? It was about making orbital slots available for a number of countries whose satellite resources had now been degraded by the use of the other people who had gone in fast Now making that possible has also been a process where again we're thankful to the ITU for the support they have been giving us and in the conference as I said give us an early Christmas present by allowing under agenda item number 7 that has become a popular agenda item because it deals with all the satellite related issues so the modification to Appendix 30 has again made that possible that what was started in 2019 has become a reality and 41 developing countries now have an opportunity to have orbital slots or satellite resources that they can use in terms of their satellite programs and that was for me one of the key things that I wanted to see from this conference and I'm thankful that that happened the other is yes we're saying leaving no one behind we want to have everybody having broadband services so we desire to see and we know that this is a technology that can realize that quickly and cheaply we are always looking for all the options wireless that's why we're even technology neutral and saying if it's Wi-Fi, if it's everything please come as long as you provide affordable services however we are in a situation where we don't have not only do our people lack resources in terms of affordability we also have challenges in terms of the capital required to do the necessary investments so much as we are still all trying to absorb the consequences of the digital migration in terms of terrestrial television many of us are still struggling to make that a reality across the country so whereas the whole world is ready to move in terms of the frequency range from 470 to really they look at the whole 960 but we could look earlier than that since some of it has already been migrated we're not yet ready so what I would want to see from this WRC is still how we can have a bit more time so that that investment we're just putting it out there we are the technical people we understand the industry put to the rest they're like are you mad? are you crazy? what are you doing? people still need television services the government still needs to provide people information educate them, entertain them and this is the platform that's out there people don't yet have mobile phones and smartphones so we still need that balance that's another thing I would want to see this WRC find a middle ground between yes I appreciate that the countries have moved on they want to move on they're eager to you know go there we're now looking for 6G coming on but how do you accommodate us so that you don't leave us behind in that so that's another area that I would wish to see and finally the other one would be to see still how we can continue fostering innovation innovation that ensures affordable services to the people innovation that brings a new experience we want the digitalization driving all the development in the world I was going to ask you where do you see Uganda in 10 years time but actually 10 years is quite a long time let's just even just go 5 years let's say because everything goes so quickly so what's your vision for the future for Uganda? oh I want to see I fully subscribe to the vision of Uganda Communications Commission which is an inclusive digital economy where we have everybody participating legal or natural have realized so seeing an economy that's fully driven by that digitalization would be a dream come true and I think we're on the journey there well that's brilliant well Irene thank you so much for joining us in the studio today it's been an absolute pleasure having you here as always and I'm sure we will catch up again very soon and in the meantime we wish you all the very best and of course look forward to to being able to get some more insights valuable insights from you in the future thank you for the opportunity thank you very much indeed and if you've enjoyed this interview then why not check out our other interviews on our YouTube channel as well as our podcasts on SoundCloud Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your podcasts and for further information visit our website at www.itu.int thanks for tuning in