The equipment is an automated spectrum management system which can assess, co-ordinate and plan the actual assignment of frequencies.

Another instrument being secured - a remote spectrum monitoring system - will monitor the signals of users anywhere in the island.

"It will provide us with the tools we need to efficiently manage the spectrum," said Ernest Smith, the managing director of SMA.

"The remote monitoring system would be the first in the English-speaking Caribbean, to the best of my knowledge."

The project will be funded from a portion of the US$6 million that the US telecom giant AT&T Wireless, paid the Jamaican government for a cell licence last year.

This means, according to Smith, that the spectrum users would not be charged for the equipment.  The SMAs budget is approximately J$60 million.

The SMA is now evaluating four firms to supply the equipment and software the agency having closed the tenders on January 17.

"We are now in the process of evaluating those tenders," he said, adding that the successful candidate would supply the equipment within a year.

"Within 12 months of placement, we expect to have those two operating systems installed and commissioned and functioning."

Two years ago Steve Twomey who heads a telecommunication firm, Reliant Enterprise, warned that the SMA would need this equipment to properly manage the spectrum.  At the time SMA said that while such equipment would be ideal, it did not need one to properly operate.

"We are now taking the necessary steps to have those tools," said Smith to the Business Observer, last week.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20050208T210000-0500_74776_OBS_SPECTRUM_TO_SPEND_US___M_ON_AIRWAVES_EQUIPMENT.asp