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Other radio stations established in Korea; or

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Radio facilities that use foreign satellites in accordance with an agreement for cross-border provision of facilities-based telecommunications services under the Telecommunications Business Act.
 

1.

Expansion of the Scope of Earth Stations Subject to Conformity Assessment

In principle, business operators intending to obtain authorization to establish a radio station must request the Minister of Science and ICT to examine the radio station in order to verify whether the radio facilities to be installed conform to applicable technical requirements (Article 21(2)2 of the RWA). However, since the amended Enforcement Decree allows certain earth stations to be deemed to have obtained such authorization, the need to manage such stations through a certification-based system (in lieu of the aforementioned examination method) has arisen.

Consequently, the NRRA has amended the NRRA Notification to add “equipment of radio facilities for an earth station for the purpose of fixed-satellite services under Article 21, Subparagraph 2 of the Enforcement Decree of the Radio Waves Act” to the category of equipment subject to conformity assessment (Article 2 of the Addenda to the NRRA Notification; Annex Table 1, Subparagraph 3, Item (b) of the Notification on Conformity Assessment of Broadcasting and Communications Equipment). As a result, radio facilities of the Earth Stations will be examined under the conformity assessment (or conformity certification) procedures under Article 58-2 of the RWA.
 

2.

Establishment of Detailed Technical Standards for Earth Stations

Since the Earth Stations will be managed under the conformity assessment regime going forward, the NRRA has newly established detailed technical standards for the transmission and reception specifications applicable to such stations. These standards incorporate international standards and internationally accepted foreign standards to ensure that the Earth Stations do not cause radio interference to other domestic or foreign communications services or broadcasting and communications equipment. More specifically, such standards as separately categorized are as follows:
 

3.

Establishment of “Common Requirements” under the Detailed Technical Standards for Earth Stations

To ensure consistency between the technical standards applicable to the Earth Stations and existing standards, the NRRA has established a new category called “Common Requirements,” which prescribe technical standards that should generally apply to all earth stations (Article 6, Subparagraph 2, Item (a) of the NRRA Notification).

For instance, previously, certain “General Requirements” for satellite tracking, transmission control, and fault detection were applied only to earth stations for low-earth-orbit satellite communications. However, after determining that the Earth Stations should also meet such requirements, the NRRA has expanded their applicability and reorganized them as the “Common Requirements” for earth stations. Furthermore, to prevent the Earth Stations from causing radio interference to other radio stations, the NRRA has incorporated power limits for maritime and aeronautical mobile earth stations into the relevant Common Requirements in line with international standards.