January 2017 | Business View Caribbean

100 101 The SpectrumManagement Authority of Jamaica Union and other regional bodies so that our spectrum activities and plans are harmonized with international regulations. “Monitoring of the spectrum for compliance is a significant part of our operations. We also do interference management. Sometimes operators, if their equipment goes out of sync, may start to broadcast inadvertently on fre- quencies that they shouldn’t. Sometimes you have shared frequencies and you can’t go above a certain power level–Wi-Fi devices, for example. Everybody uses the same Wi-Fi frequency, but you have to maintain your broadcasts within a certain power level, so that you don’t generate harmful interference. So, the complexity of the manage- ment varies, depending on the band.” BVM: Howmany licensees are there in Jamaica? McBean: “We have, typically, at any one time, over 500 active licenses. Some licenses are for short periods. For example, we issue frequen- cies to ships that dock in Jamaica; the port of Kingston is a very busy port, so we have a col- laboration with the Maritime Authority to ex- pedite licenses on a quick turnaround for ships that may be in port for anywhere between one day or a week. And then, there are some vessels that have regular calls and may apply for licens- es for up to a year or two. Then there are some government agencies which are exempt. So, for example if the military is doing joint exer- cises with third countries, and they need some frequencies, we grant authorization for a fixed period of time.” BVM: Aren’t there a limited number of avail- able frequencies? McBean: “In theory, there are an infinite num-