December 21, 2022 Results of Solicitation of Opinions on Draft Ministerial Order for Partial Amendment to Regulation for Enforcement of the Radio Act and Other Draft Amendments, and Report from the Radio Regulatory Council

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) solicited opinions from Wednesday, November 2, through Thursday, December 1, 2022, on a draft ministerial order for partial amendments to the Regulations for Enforcement of the Radio Act and other draft amendments, in order to carry out institutional development required for the introduction of 9.7-GHz-band general-purpose weather radar. As a result, 1 opinion was submitted. Accordingly, MIC discloses the submitted opinion along with MIC's views on it.
Considering the results of the solicitation of opinions, MIC today submitted an inquiry about the appropriateness of the finalized draft to the Radio Regulatory Council (Chaired by HIBINO Takashi, Chairman of the Board, Daiwa Securities Group Inc.) and received a report from the Council, approving the draft as appropriate.
MIC will promptly carry out the institutional development of the relevant ministerial ordinance, based on the results of opinions submitted and the report from the Radio Regulatory Council.

1. Outline of revision

Weather forecasts and natural disaster information based on the results of observation using weather radar is widely disseminated to the public, and are essential to ensuring safety and security in people's daily lives. Given that recent years have seen a particular increase in the severity of disasters, such as rivers overflowing due to localized torrential downpours, there is a need to deploy not only weather radar intended for observation over an extensive area with a radius of several hundred kilometers, but also small-scale weather radar intended to provide weather information specifically for the purpose of supporting risk avoidance measures and the security of modes of transport in a specific area with a radius of around 30 km.
In light of such needs, the Land Radiocommunication Subcommittee under the Department on Information and Communications Technology of the Information and Communications Council started study in October 2017 concerning technical requirements for 9.7-GHz-band general-purpose weather radar as part of technical requirements for weather radars, and compiled a partial report in March 2022.
This amendment is for institutional development for the introduction of 9.7 GHz band general-purpose weather radar, taking into account the content of the partial report.

2. Subject of solicitation of opinions

• 1.
  Draft ministerial order for partial amendment to the Regulation for Enforcement of the Radio Act (Radio Regulatory Commission Rules No. 14 of 1950) and others
• 2.
  Draft ministerial notice for partial amendment to MIC Notice No. 67 of 2019 (Notice to partially amend the definition of the reference bandwidth for radio equipment of radio stations engaging in wireless positioning services and the frequency of the boundary between the out-of-band domain and the spurious domain)
• 3.
  Draft official directive for partial amendment of the Examination Standards related to the Radio Act (MIC Directive No. 67 of 2001)

3. Report from the Radio Regulatory Council

Considering the results of the solicitation of opinions, MIC submitted an inquiry about the appropriateness of the finalized draft to the Radio Regulatory Council today, and received a report from the Council, approving the draft as appropriate.

4. Future plans

MIC will promptly carry out the institutional development of relevant regulations based on the results of opinions submitted and the report from the Radio Regulatory Council.

5. How to obtain reference information

MIC will make the reference information available for viewing and obtaining copies at the Land Mobile Communications Division, Radio Department, Telecommunications Bureau, MIC (10th Floor, MIC).

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  The published materials are in Japanese only.