With Active Participation from the Kingdom, the World Radiocommunication Conference Concludes and Approves Additional Frequency Spectrum for 5G Applications

The World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19) concluded its work last week in Sharm El-Sheikh, Arab Republic of Egypt. The Kingdom participated in this conference with a national delegation headed by the Communications and Information Technology Commission, with the participation of a number of government and private entities, and a number of important decisions were made during the conference to provide frequency spectrum for various modern wireless applications and services; which will contribute to improving telecommunications services and wireless applications around the world.

According to the Deputy Head of the Kingdom's delegation and Vice-Chairman of Committee 4 at the conference, Eng. Mohammed Al-Janoubi, decisions were made during the conference to provide additional frequency spectrum for 5G applications, with the bands (24.25-27.5), (37-43.5), (47.2-48.2), and (66-71) GHz allocated for these applications, in line with the Kingdom's supportive position on these modern technologies, bringing the total bandwidth allocated to the Kingdom for 5G applications in these bands to 15.75 GHz. The allocation of frequencies in these bands subsequently to service providers in the Kingdom will contribute to strengthening the Kingdom's pioneering role in deploying 5G applications, in addition to agreement on studying the use of High-Altitude Platform Stations (HIBS) for 5G applications, and providing frequencies for these platforms within the bands designated for International Mobile Telecommunications systems; which will contribute to providing broadband applications, bringing about a qualitative shift in telecommunications and information technology services around the world.

Numerous decisions were also made during the conference regarding the management and regulation of international frequency use, particularly with regard to enhancing safety systems in aviation and maritime transport.