Page 17 - SAMENA Trends - December 2023

WRC-23 SAMENA TRENDS

Saudi Arabia Sets Its Future Directions Through World Radiocommunication

Conference “WRC-23” Resolutions and Recommendations

Saudi Arabia concluded its participation in the
World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-
23) which was hosted by the UAE for the past
four weeks. On this occasion, Eng. Mohammed
Al-Abdulqader, Vice Chair of the conference and
Saudi Arabia’s representative, stated that Saudi’s
participation has contributed to its efforts in
serving humanity, bridging the digital divide, and
supporting Space sustainability. He added that
this resulted in finalizing positive outcomes &
resolutions such as allocating additional
frequencies for 5G & future 6G, recognizing
license-exempt networks (Wi-Fi), in addition to
allocating additional frequencies for 5G HAPS,
an innovative technology which was piloted by
Saudi Arabia last year. In his statement, Eng. Al-
Abdulqader indicated that Saudi Arabia
collaborated with the international community to
enable non-terrestrial services to provide internet
coverage on planes and ships in order to enhance
the passengers’ experience, develop international
regulations to register the non-geostationary
satellites to support the orbital resources, in
addition to the registration of a Saudi orbital slot
and recognize it internationally to support the
launching of a Saudi satellite to provide radio
services. He also noted that the conference
identified a number of topics to be studied during
the next two cycles thru 2031, which includes the
provision of additional frequencies in the
(4,7,8,15) GHz, and the terahertz band for 5G and
6G systems, as well as the study of reusing
mobile networks frequencies via satellites for
Device-to-Device (D2D) technology which will
promote the global usage of non-terrestrial
networks (NTN). In addition, these studies will
review the protection measures on the non-
geostationary satellite systems that will increase
their adoption, decrease its costs, and promote
Space sustainability. This also covers the
possibility of allocating new frequency bands for
wireless power transmission (WPT), which will
contribute to Saudi’s sustainability efforts in
many projects. The World Radiocommunication
Conference is held every four years to revise the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Radio Regulations, which is an international
treaty that manages the spectrum and the
satellite orbital resources efficiently among
other radio services and guarantees its
harmonization. The WRC23 witnessed the
participation of more than 4,000 delegates from
193 countries, in addition to manufacturers and
operators of various wireless technologies.

17 DECEMBER 2023