Radio frequencies - Spectrum management

Ever since the Russian physicist Popov succeeded in 1896 in transmitting a Morse message 250 m away without any physical link, using a combination of Hertz's spark gap, Branly's coheater and the antenna he had just invented, electromagnetic waves have been used for a wide range of applications far beyond the realm of communications, at the same time as advances in technology have enabled us to control an ever-increasing portion of the radio spectrum.

It is fair to say that, at the cost of a continuous and extremely significant technical and legal effort, the international radiocommunications community has succeeded in developing the necessary regulatory changes with sufficient advance notice and in a highly efficient manner overall. Thanks to this ongoing planning, management and control of the spectrum, almost all the numerous technical innovations resulting from advances in electronic technology have found a framework that is conducive to their development, wide distribution and smooth operation, in cohabitation with more traditional, even older, uses, and generating only an extraordinarily modest number of interferences and conflicts compared with the profusion of uses, the huge number of users and the vital importance of the services offered by these technologies.