My point was not about the need (or lack thereof) of spectrum management, but rather the need (or lack thereof) of an international office for handling spectrum slots. The kind of allocation management you mention is an easier one to tackle. Radio allocation for mobile networks is distance-restricted, it only has to deal with local frequencies unless your are installing mobile antennas in border towns. If countries can be good neighbors you don't need an elephantine international bureaucracy to manage these type of spectrum allocation. Where I live this has been the case, all cross-border frequency issues were fixed through peer to peer negotiation between operators. As for spectrum sales, well, again it's not the ITU who's doing it, the regulators are. Large-scale, global, spectrum management remains an issue (i'm thinking about talk radio, marine/aircraft/satellite communications, navigation aids and similar applications), but, IMO, is a less demanding/critical task than it used to be, and thus the workload for the ITU-R should be less than it used to be. cheers! ~Carlos On 1/2/13 3:34 PM, Dearlove, Christopher (UK) wrote: > Carlos M. Martinez >> Radio spectrum allocation was a critical task at the time (it still is, >> although the world doesn't depend that much on it anymore), > > Given the ever increasing number of mobile devices, one could argue that the world > has never been more dependent on radio spectrum allocation. It's still not that long since > the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer made over £20 billion from selling spectrum, something > possible since international treaties had agreed on its purpose for 3G communications. >