World radiocommunication conference - 2015: Reflections on Africa international spectrum policy

Having said that, the examination of the interaction between the international spectrum management regime and Africa's international spectrum policy has revealed some elements of restriction. Firstly, the a priori planning concept could be considered as a restriction over any change to the spectrum use in the UHF band. Secondly, it seems that harmonisation within Region 1 is mostly interpreted as the harmonisation of Africa with Europe considering that the current ITU-R three regions system does not reflect in practice regional spectrum use. Thirdly, IMT identification is not necessary for Africa, which has already the potential to act alone independently of the other Region 1 countries and not necessarily in alignment with the RR. Fourthly, reaching a unified position is quite difficult for the African continent considering the different interests of the African sub-regional groups with large countries influencing such a position. Overall, our main message is that it is not a condition anymore for the African countries to look at the ITU-R for the way to go.