PHILIPSBURG:--- From March 8th till 10th the Head of the Technical Department of Bureau Telecommunications and Post St. Maarten, Mr. Sidney de Weever, attended a regional frequency coordination meeting that was hosted by the International Telecom Union (ITU) on the use of the VHF band (174-216MHz) and the UHF band (470-806MHz), which took place in Managua, Nicaragua.
The VHF and UHF bands are being used for important services such as Radio, Analog TV, Digital TV (DTT), and Mobile Communication, and during the meeting the future use of these two frequency bands were discussed in light of the further utilization of DTT, 4G/LTE mobile networks, and the potential future deployment of 5G networks.
During the ITU Regional Frequency Coordination Meeting, a new registration/coordination software tool was launched, whereby regulators can better plan and issue spectrum within their own territories, and be able to mitigate any interference to or from neighboring territories. Frequency Coordination is something that St. Maarten, France (French St. Martin) and Anguilla have been doing for many years now, and is a vital condition for high-quality communications services.
Counterparts from France, the B.E.S. islands, and Curacao were also present during the ITU Meetings, along with a wide variety of regulators from throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.
Bureau Telecommunications and Post St. Maarten is extending its gratitude to the Dutch Government and its representative Mr. Jaap Steenge, in the capacity of the designated focal point (DFP) for the Netherlands at ITU, for directly involving Sint Maarten in these top-level Telecom Sessions.
