Off-air auditing
Published: 10.11.2009
In 2008, the Ministry of Economic Development commissioned an independent business evaluation of Radio Spectrum Management (RSM).
As a result of the evaluation, a compliance strategy review was undertaken, which included two industry workshops in December 2008 and March 2009.
From feedback received, RSM revised and refocused its compliance audit programme. One of the major changes is greater emphasis of resources on radiated (off-air) measurements.
Since 1 July 2009, over 90 percent of licence audits completed have been off-air measurements. This has had the beneficial effect of significantly reducing the amount of client interaction and involvement required, resulting in cost and time savings for those licensees.
Whilst there is a greater emphasis on off-air audits, some direct-coupled measurements will continue to be made, both for sampling information and for confirmation of off-air audit data. These will only be done by prior arrangement with licensees.
With this new focus RSM field staff have been developing and refining their skills in this very demanding discipline with associated benefits expected for interference investigation. This is particularly relevant in the fixed links above 1GHz where RSM has traditionally not spent a lot of time auditing mainly due to equipment constraints.
Off-air measurements have all but removed the need to involve licensees, and in most cases licensees will only know an audit has been conducted once RSM has completed the off-air analysis and advised licensees the outcome.
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