The Ministry of Science and ICT has strengthened international cooperation to discover new frequencies for 6G mobile communications.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it participated in the 6th Asia-Pacific Regional Organization Preparatory Meeting (APG23) held in Brisbane, Australia from the 14th to the 19th to prepare for the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC23, expected to be attended by 193 countries) scheduled to be held in the UAE in November of this year.

The WRC (World Radiocommunication Conference) is a conference hosted by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) that decides on important matters related to global frequency allocation and radiocommunications. Held every four years, it is called the Radio Olympics, and approximately 3,400 people from 193 countries participate.

This APG23 meeting was attended by approximately 460 people, including representatives and officials from 38 member countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific region, and finalized the joint position of the Asia-Pacific region in preparation for WRC23. As the chair of the meeting, Korea participated with a total of 42 domestic experts, including the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of National Defense, the National Radio Research Agency, Samsung Electronics, and KT.

Our country has established a joint position with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on new frequency bands that have not been studied for mobile communications at the WRC. Additionally, bilateral talks were held with more than 10 countries, including the United States, India, China, and Japan.

As a result, at this APG23 meeting, the need for research on 6G mobile communication frequencies was established as an opinion of the Asia-Pacific region (APT View, research on 6G candidate frequencies in 4.4-15.35㎓).
In the satellite communications sector, the conditions for operating ESIM (Earth Station in Motion, satellite base station) were agreed upon based on conditions for non-interference protection for ground and satellite operations and procedures for removing interference when it occurs. In particular, since the provisional joint proposal for the Asia-Pacific region was adopted based on the contents of the national contribution submitted by our country, our country's mobile communications and public communications satellite networks can be operated stably without interference or confusion from other services.

Our country plans to continue to engage in cooperative activities with leading countries overseas so that it can be considered as an agenda item for the next WRC meeting to be discussed at WRC23 in November.

In addition, the Ministry of Science and ICT will continue its efforts to dispatch domestic 6G experts internationally. It is explained that by signing an agreement with the ITU to dispatch private experts to the ITU, the foundation has been laid for our country to secure leadership at the 2027 WRC conference.

The Ministry of Science and ICT’s Director of Radio Policy Choi Woo-hyuk explained, “Through this APG meeting, our country has made various efforts to lead global frequency cooperation, such as proactively proposing the need to discover mobile communication frequencies, such as 6G, to the Asia-Pacific region.” He added, “Based on active communication with domestic industries and academia, we will further strengthen international cooperation activities so that our country’s position can be reflected as much as possible at the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC23) in November.”