AROS meeting with Ofcom
Members of the Society met with Ofcom on 30 March 2012 to review the working arrangements between Ofcom and the Amateur Radio Observation Service (AROS). Ofcom was well represented with senior staff attending from Ofcom’s Spectrum Policy, Licensing, Investigation and Enforcement areas. The Society was represented by John Gould, G3WKL, (RSGB Director) Keith Bassett, G7NBU (recently appointed AROS Coordinator), and John Rogers, M0JAV (Acting AROS Coordinator).
The meeting covered the following areas
- Status of the ongoing work on a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Ofcom and the Society. The meeting focused upon Ofcom’s statutory responsibilities in respect of interference and abuse investigation and enforcement. The principles relating to AROS, broadly agreed to in 2009, are being re-drafted into the common MoU format that Ofcom are using with its other spectrum stakeholders.
- Points of contact were discussed and agreed to meet AROS’ needs for confidentiality, and anonymity for its Observers.
- Ofcom’s interference and abuse triage process. The threshold for escalating complaints to Ofcom for formal investigation and potential enforcement action was discussed.
- Current AROS cases were reviewed. These had either been referred to AROS following triage within Ofcom, or else had been directly reported to AROS. It was agreed that AROS should close a number of cases, as its observations were insufficient to instigate a formal Ofcom investigation. It was agreed that one case would be passed to Ofcom.
- Increasing publicity of enforcement action was discussed along with possibilities for staged enforcement. Olympic and Paralympics Games: Regarding temporary changes to the amateur bands during the period of the games—Ofcom will be shortly releasing a communication on its website detailing the restrictions being put in place. Ofcom also advised that it would take appropriate and proportionate action during Games time, relating to any deliberate or avoidable infringements of these restrictions; the Society will also be publicising the information in RadCom and its website.
© 2012 Radio Society of Great Britain
Page last updated 19 April 2012 at 13:58
Article source: http://www.rsgb.org/news/articlelinks.php?id=0347
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