The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance (DSA) Global Summit 2016 concluded yesterday with a final excellent day of sessions. Representatives from 21 countries around the world came together in Bogota, Colombia to learn and exchange knowledge about best spectrum sharing policies and practices. The Global Summit has created an enormous impact on spectrum regulatory thinking in the Americas and around the world.

This was the first time 17 international regulators including, the Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (ANATEL), Brazil; Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT), Mexico; Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (SUTEL), Costa Rica; Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA), Botswana; Agencia Nacional del Espectro (ANE), Colombia; Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones de Chile (SUBTEL), Chile; and the Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones (INDOTEL), Dominican Republic attended the DSA Global Summit. They were joined by executives from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Microsoft, Broadcom Limited, and Google amongst many others.

“The Global Summit has presented a lot of opportunities for the regulators,” commented Glenn Fallas, General Director, Quality of Service and Spectrum Department, Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (SUTEL), Costa Rica. “We would like to thank DSA for holding the Summit in the Americas. We have had the chance to dig further into the issues around spectrum management and have gained a deeper understanding of spectrum standards and how to implement these in our country. This has been the best two days of information sharing about dynamic spectrum access issues.”

Attendees of the event expressed their appreciation for the deep discussions generated from the high quality of presentations throughout the conference; in particular, those sessions that focused on Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), TVWS technology advances, real use-case studies using shared spectrum from Botswana to Mexico, and the need for increased spectrum sharing in the 5GHz bands to accommodate new technologies like 802.11ac.

“Our aim at DSA is to work with regulators and key stakeholders from around the world to balance exclusive utilization of spectrum with more sharing where needed; to balance more licensed regulation with unlicensed regulation; and to balance more static spectrum allocation with dynamic allocation,” commented H Nwana, Executive Director, Dynamic Spectrum Alliance. “The Global Summit in Bogota, Colombia has been a true success in promoting this vision across the Americas and around the world, and all the regulators in attendance agreed to take away this key message of the DSA.”

Many regulators have asked the Alliance for tool kits and assistance in how they can implement the spectrum sharing best practices discussed during the Global Summit in their own countries across the Americas.

Oscar Leon Suarez, Executive Secretary, the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission, CITEL, of the Organization of American States, OAS gave the final keynote address in which he expressed that events such as the Global Summit were essential to connect the next four billion unconnected and to spread the necessary knowledge about spectrum sharing in the Americas and around the world.

The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance is looking to host the 2017 Global Summit in Cape Town, South Africa and partner with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).