The Telecommunications, Radiocommunications and Broadcasting Regulator (TRBR) was created by Act of Parliament, The Telecommunications, Radiocommunications and Broadcasting Regulation Act No.30 of 2009 as amended by Amendment 22 of 2018 (the Act). Section 7(2)(e) of the Act mandates the Regulator to allocate assign and manage the radio spectrum.
7(2) “without limiting the generality of subsection (1), the Regulator is to:”
(e)” allocate, assign and manage the radio spectrum. “
On Thursday 18th June 2020, the office of the Regulator received a general request from Vodafone to run a sweep test on the 900 MHz band and share the results with Vodafone, and there was no specific interference issue was reported at that time. On 22nd June 2020, the TRBR after several communications with Vodafone confirms that there was an interfering signal on the Vodafone network, but had not concluded on which operator was causing the interference and therefore required further tests to identify and immediately mitigate the problem.
The TRBR conducted several interference tests in collaboration with both Digicel and Vodafone, and the results of the investigations were concluded on 28th June 2020.
TRBR wishes to advise all operators and the public that the interference issue that was experienced on the Vodafone network has been identified and was not from another operator as posted on the social media.
TRBR confirms that the issue is now resolved and is eventually closed.
TRBR wishes to re-iterate that any operator or individual is not allowed to transmit on any licensed frequency without having a legal license. Anyone who is found transmitting illegally on any licensed band will be dealt with according to the TRBR Act.
Further, TRBR wishes to advise the public and other stake holders to refrain from commenting on matters concerning interference as this is an issue that could have implications on the Telecom Market.
Only TRBR is mandated by the Act to manage spectrum in Vanuatu and all interference issues must be directed to TRBR and will only be handled by the office of TRBR. Interference issues are not easy to identify and can take a lot of resources, effort and time.