Representational Activities

JRC represents its membership in many ways, perhaps the best way to illustrate this is to describe a few case studies:

ORBCOMMLIVE Trials

In the late 1990s, JRC, in association with the UK Radiocommunications Agency, had been conducting field trials on a live PMR system in order to ascertain the interference potential of sharing our PMR mobile transmit spectrum with ground-based terminals (Communicators) from the ORBCOMM Little-Low-Earth-Orbit (Little-LEO) system. The results were surprising and the interference potential proved to be far worse than we suspected. This boils down to the fact that the ORBCOMM system (and all similar Little-LEO systems) is very similar in basic operation to our MPT1327 systems and in common with any place where there are two trunked radio systems sharing channels the two systems are completely incompatible with each other, i.e. sharing just isn't feasible.

In the USA, trunked systems have a right to exclusive spectrum as the FCC recognise that channel sharing is not possible in the same geographic area. Because of this, and in recognition of the incompatibilities between the different Little-LEO networks, the then Little-LEO operators had agreed a bandplan amongst themselves to avoid sharing the same spectrum. Orbcomm is the only one with satellites in orbit and probably won't get any neighbours in the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, the rules regarding the sharing of trunked spectrum in the USA were not made known to the UK and European Regulators who assumed that, like most other types of terrestrial PMR, MPT1327 systems were not susceptible to interference from Little-LEO systems. Recognising the incompatibility, the UK Radiocommunications Agency implemented a band-sharing arrangement which keeps the two incompatible systems apart in the UK.

Radiocommunications Committees

The JRC Represents its Members in many committees and fora, including:

• Ofcom
  • Business Radio Interest Group
  • BRIG comprises several earlier committees and is now the only Business Radio Committee run by Ofcom
  • Fixed Wireless Industry Liaison Forum
  • FWILF is the main Fixed Links Committee
  • UK ITU Committees
  • JRC has representation on UK WP8X (now part of BRIG) and WP5A and WP5D

In addition, JRC has its own internal Advisory Committee which advises on the long-term policy and operational matters of the JRC.