SPS International Agreements - Detailed

States, as opposed to the ITU, designate or assign particular frequencies to their own national applicants.^ Such assignments are a function of the sovereignty of such States. Theoretically, such assignments could be made by States as they might see fit. However, membership in the ITU obliges them to participate in the above mentioned legislative process. Assuming a willingness on the part of the signatories to the ITU conventions a State will notify the IFRB of the frequency assignment that has been made. The Board possesses authority to examine the national notice, correspond with the State, issue findings with respect to conformity to existing laws, identify the possibility that the noticed frequency would constitute harmful interference with previously recorded assignments, and record the national assignment in the Master International Frequency Register. This phase of the ITU's activities has been described as regulatory with the functions of the Board being "quasi-judicial This conclusion is supported by the fact that the legal status of a national assignment depends in part on the findings of the Board. Thus, it will be seen that the ITU acts in two stages. In the legislative stage it is engaged in the allocation of radio frequencies to communications services at the world level. In the regulatory stage the ITU makes assessments of the assignment of frequencies by member States to specific stations to determine if such assignments are consistent with the ITU Convention, with the Radio Regulations, and with other Assignments of frequencies by the United States are "effected by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP), acting in concert." Office of Telecommunications Policy, Executive Office of the President, "The Radio Frequency Spectrum, United States Use and Management," p. B-5 (1975). When the frequencies are published they constitute the National Table of Frequency Allocations. Leive, op. cit., p. 20.

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