The ITU has launched  a COVID-19 database that enables governments, regulators, mobile operators and other participants in the telecoms world to share experiences and best practice during the current crisis. There is information from all corners of the globe and every part of the spectrum world in response to the… Read more...

As you may know, PolicyTracker’s Spectrum Research Service has now been running for five years and has over 500 subscribers. They get access to our extensive library of Research Notes, analysing the key spectrum policy issues and assessing the strategic positions of all the major stakeholders across the mobile, satellite and… Read more...

Amazon and Apple may both be more recent arrivals on the spectrum policy stage but their priorities are quite different as our two new Research Notes explain. Amazon is focussed on the unlicensed spectrum on which its devices, services and fulfilment centres rely. But it also has interests in drone… Read more...

It’s now pretty obvious that there is widespread concern about the deployment of 5G small cells in residential areas. A quick Google search reveals hundreds of websites, blogs and news stories arguing that using higher frequencies increases the risk of health problems related to exposure to radiofrequency emissions. The problem is that this… Read more...

When the world's regulators met in Egypt last year to discuss the agenda for WRC-23, it was widely thought that there will be a discussion of potential IMT identifications in frequencies between 3.3 GHz and 24 GHz. As with every compromise, not everyone got what they wanted. The satellite and… Read more...

Controversy, compromise, and consensus: the latest World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19) at Sharm el-Sheikh had it all. Credit must go to the 3400 delegates from 165 ITU member states for their efforts not just over the four weeks of the conference, but throughout the preceding four years of preparatory studies and… Read more...

The satellite industry's worst fears did not materialise at WRC-19 and it declared itself pleased with the result. Existing services gained some protection against 5G in 26 GHz and 40 GHz but not in exactly the way the sector had hoped. There was good news for satellite in 28 GHz:… Read more...

What were the key events which shaped spectrum management over the past ten years? We asked PolicyTracker staff and they gave a wide range of answers, including the growth of spectrum sharing, the US incentive auction, social networking going mobile and the banning of Huawei. Read more...

In the past few months, we have tried to explain how spectrum management and policy has evolved in the past 100 years, why some approaches have become dominant and set out today's "hot button" policy issues. The result is our new e-book: Spectrum management and policy which is now available for download. It… Read more...

It's not spectrum auctions that have produced most of the updates in this quarter's PolicyTracker Spectrum Database (PSD). The last quarter of 2019 saw 817.4 MHz of new or changed assignments, but roughly only a quarter (220 MHz) of these came from new awards. Although regulators around the world are… Read more...