Saudi Arabia concluded its participation in the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-23) which was hosted by the UAE for the past four weeks. On this occasion, Eng. Mohammed Al-Abdulqader, Vice Chair of the conference and Saudi Arabia’s representative, stated that Saudi’s participation has contributed to its efforts in serving humanity, bridging the digital divide, and supporting Space sustainability. He added that this resulted in finalizing positive outcomes & resolutions such as allocating additional frequencies for 5G & future 6G, recognizing license-exempt networks (Wi-Fi), in addition to

allocating additional frequencies for 5G HAPS, an innovative technology which

was piloted by Saudi Arabia last year.

In his statement, Eng. Al-Abdulqader indicated that Saudi Arabia collaborated with the international community to enable non-terrestrial services to provide internet coverage on planes and ships in order to enhance the passengers’ experience, develop international regulations to register the non-geostationary satellites to support the orbital resources, in addition to the registration of a Saudi orbital slot and recognize it internationally to support the launching of a  Saudi satellite to provide radio services.

He also noted that the conference identified a number of topics to be studied during the next two cycles thru 2031, which includes the provision of additional frequencies in the (4,7,8,15) GHz, and the terahertz band for 5G and 6G systems, as well as the study of reusing mobile networks frequencies via satellites for Device-to-Device (D2D) technology which will promote the global usage of non-terrestrial networks (NTN). In addition, these studies will review the protection measures on the non-geostationary satellite systems that will increase their adoption,, decrease its costs, and promote Space sustainability. This also covers the possibility of allocating new frequency bands for wireless power transmission (WPT), which will contribute to Saudi’s sustainability efforts in many projects. 

The World Radiocommunication Conference is held every four years to revise the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Radio Regulations, which is an international treaty that manages the spectrum and the satellite orbital resources efficiently among other radio services and guarantees its harmonization. The WRC23 witnessed the participation of more than 4,000 delegates from 193 countries, in addition to manufacturers and operators of various wireless technologies.