The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) has issued more than 25,000 authorizations for radio applications and equipment allowing the host country, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), FIFA contractors, FIFA commercial affiliates, and broadcasters to possess and use such radio applications and equipment at the official venues of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™, in order to broadcast, facilitate, and plan operational and logistical operations of the tournament.
The number of authorizations issued by CRA is unprecedented in the history of the tournament, and it confirms the high-level of international interest in this tournament and its appeal to a wide range of parties. It also emphasizes on the effective role played by the radio applications and equipment in supporting the operations of all FIFA-affiliated parties.
FIFA World Cup is mainly characterized by a wide range of radio applications and a significant number of radio equipment gathered within a limited area. Therefore, CRA, the tournament’s spectrum management service provider and the responsible authority for managing, assigning, licensing, and monitoring the use of the radio spectrum in the State of Qatar, took into account, not to allow any radio equipment to be used in the official venues unless it is registered on the e-spectrum portal and tested and tagged by the CRA.
The number of entities that have registered on the portal has reached more than 300 and more than 20,000 radio equipment has undergone spectrum testing procedures and obtained the required tag, which enabled those licensees to use them at the tournament’s official venues.
Since the middle of this year, CRA has started receiving requests from all parties related to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ to ensure the timely allocation of radio frequencies and the issuance of the necessary authorizations as well as to ensure the compliance of users of those radio applications and equipment with the technical conditions and parameters issued by CRA in this regard.