Summary

  • Thirty-nine governments propose a new ITU resolution that would send persistent harmful-interference cases, after Radio Regulations Board consideration, to the ITU Council for further action.
  • The Radiocommunication Bureau would report the unresolved cases, existing tools, procedural limits and possible remedies; the Development Bureau would help members detect and resolve interference.

A radio complaint can acquire a respectable folder while the signal keeps cutting across the screen. Thirty-nine governments want a route out of that loop. Their ITU contribution 90, dated 19 October for the Plenipotentiary Conference starting 9 November, proposes a new resolution on persistent harmful interference. It would move unresolved cases from the Radiocommunication Bureau and Radio Regulations Board into Council consideration.

The draft assigns a sequence. The Radiocommunication Bureau director would consult the Board, then prepare a report for the Council: what tools already exist, which cases persist, where procedures have stalled, and what changes to procedures or the Radio Regulations might help. The Council would then identify, evaluate and enact measures available to the Union after a case has been before the Board. The text places this work within the ITU’s existing legal powers. A separate instruction asks the Development Bureau to help states build the technical capacity to prevent, detect and resolve interference.

Member states are invited to cooperate with the investigation and stop harmful signals from stations under their jurisdiction.

The ITU’s own case page shows the friction. At its 102nd meeting, the Radio Regulations Board recorded Lithuania’s reports of continuing GNSS jamming and spoofing, and mobile-service interference near the Kaliningrad border. The Board noted that Lithuania reported receiving no Russian response to its interference notices. It urged the Russian administration to prevent transmissions affecting Lithuanian navigation receivers and to answer the reports. It also asked the Bureau to support talks and report back at the 103rd meeting.

At the 100th meeting the same public page recorded a different outcome: a radio-navigation interference case involving Israel, Jordan and Egypt was resolved after operational safeguards and cooperation. The system can close a file; contribution 90 targets the files that keep coming back.

The sponsors also cite navigation and other safety-related services, and ask the ITU Secretary-General to continue work with aviation and maritime bodies. The proposal is before the November conference. Its central test is simple: can an unresolved technical complaint produce a Council decision with a traceable remedy, rather than another carefully worded invitation to cooperate?

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