[802SEC] Final report of this year's ITU-R WP1A meeting

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Dear EC,

During the period June 3 – 11 I attended I attended ITU-R Study Group 1 (SG1, Spectrum Management) Working Party 1A (WP1A, Spectrum Engineering Techniques). IEEE 802’s sole input to that meeting (and the sole IEEE SA input) can be found on 802.18’s Mentor website as 18-13-0117-06. That document was developed in cooperation with 802.24. For those looking for it on the WP1A document list it is listed as Document 1A/143-E. The final version of it from this most recent meeting is attached here as it appears as in the Chair’s Report as Annex 13 to Document 1A/166-E and may also be found on 802.18’s Mentor website as 18-14-0036-01-0000. The cover letter for the liaison is on the same website as 18-14-0035-00-0000. The revision of 18-14-0036 was made necessary by a format error and the document had to be reloaded to Mentor.

To make things simple what happened at this meeting was that the WP1A drafting group took the entire content of 18-13-0117-06 to use as the draft report (or recommendation) text. The edits to it were either minimal additions or request for ITU-T SG15 to review and provide updates and/or comments. (Editorial note: at the start of the meeting there was a presentation regarding PLC in general and G.Fast and the difficulties that they are having regardless of the ITU press release to the contrary.)

In the drafting committee several items of import were considered:

1) Regardless of the status (report or recommendation) it was considered that the finished publication could serve as a reference for a WRC wanting to identify spectrum for Smart Grid networks.

2) That the term “Smart Grid” did not apply exclusively to electric grids but any utility.

3) That the date certain for initial responses (December 31, 2014) was necessary to “encourage” some groups that had gone silent (e.g. ITU-T SG15) to make a contribution and to do so in time for others to review and comment. That, of course, also applies to IEEE in either making updated comments or commenting on other proposals.

4) That while we are taking a risk as regards dealing with any new technology proposals it was felt that the six month window between the date certain for initial submissions and the normal submission date would allow for comment resolution. It was agreed that there would be an active rapporteur group, led by the BBC representative, to deal with conflict resolutions.

5) That at the June, 2015 meeting the document would be advanced, meaning that the term “Preliminary” would be dropped from the title and WP1A would approve and advance it to SG1 for their approval. Presuming approval at SG1 it is intended that the Advanced Approval Process would be used for final approval.

6) There is still discussion of adding an Agenda Item to WRC15 to begin the process of spectrum identification, most likely on a regional basis, for Smart Grid applications. There is also continuing discussion, best conducted face to face, on making this an ITU-R Recommendation rather than a Report.

It now remains for 802 to either provide edits/additions to the previous contribution by the December date certain or to be prepared to wait and participate in the comment resolution phase. In either case 802 needs to participate in whatever process the rapporteur puts in place, be it conference calls or simply email exchanges.

I want to close by complementing the collaborative work of 802.24 and 802.18. This document (18-13-0117) was gladly accepted by a the WP1A attendees who, for the most part, are those from the various national spectrum regulatory bodies that will be making the ultimate decisions on spectrum for Smart Grid applications, good friends to have and to work with.

Best regards,

Mike