Technology in action

Shaping the future of connectivity

A conversation with Rohde & Schwarz Public Affairs Director Uwe Bäder on collaboration with the ITU

04-Feb-2026

Today we’re speaking with Uwe Bäder, Director of Public Affairs at Rohde & Schwarz, in order to delve into the company’s long-standing relationship with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Could you start by describing your role and how it connects to this crucial partnership?

My role centers on technical committees within the public affairs sphere, specifically focusing on frequency and digital policy. The ITU is fundamentally the global authority for spectrum regulation, with radio regulations being updated every four years at the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) – a process we actively participate in to stay abreast of developments impacting both our solutions for regulators and our test and measurement portfolio. The WRC draws a diverse range of participants including administrators and representatives from both public and private entities. What sets the ITU apart as a UN body is its unique allowance for direct participation from the private sector as sector members, a contrast to other forums limited to national administrations.

Beyond attending major conferences, what does your day-to-day work look like?

To some extent, I also look into the recommendations and reports that are developed for the ITU or other regional entities like CEPT – the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations. I examine what’s been discussed in groups we aren’t directly involved in, to see what's relevant and how decisions will impact the work and products of Rohde & Schwarz. But we’re also looking for new opportunities. For example, we’re currently focused on the growing sector of space communications – a field with a lot of potential for us, given our expertise. There are requirements for appropriate test and measurement, but also to enforce satellite regulations.

Rohde & Schwarz has a long history with the ITU. Can you tell us more about its importance?

It’s fundamental. First, the ITU has three sectors: the radiocommunication sector (ITU-R), the standardization sector (ITU-T) and the development sector (ITU-D). All three are relevant to our work. Radio technology is in our DNA. It’s quite natural that the recommendations and reports developed by ITU-R have a direct impact on our product and solutions portfolio. The ITU-D activities for capacity building and digital awareness, especially in countries that may not have easy access to this information, are also very important. Every country needs to take care of spectrum usage, and they need sound knowledge about how to do that. We organize training courses on spectrum monitoring within the ITU-D Academy.

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Radio technology is in our DNA. It’s quite natural that the recommendations and reports developed by ITU-R have a direct impact on our product and solutions portfolio.

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Uwe Bäder, Director of Public Affairs

Collaboration in action: Training, standards and projects

These courses typically take around four to five days, usually a week. They are packed with theoretical training on the regulations you need to adhere to for spectrum monitoring. They also include practical spectrum measurement. Most of the content is provided by Rohde & Schwarz, but we also invite guest speakers from regulatory authorities, which adds a lot of value to our training. We organize this in collaboration with the ITU. The ITU invites participants to the trainings we host – we’re a content provider. It’s not just theoretical; we give people a chance to get hands-on with the latest equipment and tackle tasks they'd face in their daily work dealing with regulators. We include practice, such as interference hunting, and location and direction finding of radio sources that shouldn't be transmitting. Participants really appreciate that. And another key aspect is that we’re building a community. Usually, there are around 20 to 30 people in these training courses, and that group often stays connected to exchange best practices.

Showing the R&S®PR200 portable monitoring receiver

Rohde & Schwarz provides a hands-on opportunity to learn

Participants go through real-world scenarios

Course attendees get a chance to try out the products outside

Showing the R&S®PR200 portable monitoring receiver

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Rohde & Schwarz provides a hands-on opportunity to learn

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Participants go through real-world scenarios

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Course attendees get a chance to try out the products outside

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Shifting focus to standards, how does Rohde & Schwarz support the ITU-T in developing global telecommunications norms?

Standards are essential for a global ecosystem. This is true for all standardization entities – not only ITU-T, but also ISO, 3GPP and IEEE. The ITU-T has this global view built in by design, as one sector of the International Telecommunication Union. They’re focusing on ubiquitous connectivity – ensuring that devices can connect in an interoperable way. And that can only be achieved by standards. To underline the importance of this and to set tracks for future developments, we were very happy that the ITU accepted our offer to host the ITU-T CxO Meeting. During this meeting, we had very inspiring and fruitful discussions that we hope will provide guidance for future standardization areas in the ITU.

Could you elaborate on the CxO Meeting?

It’s composed of high-level representatives of the ITU-T sector memberships from the private sector. So, it focuses on the private sector and provides a direct channel to the director of ITU-T. There’s a very good exchange that allows CEOs to give direct feedback from their point of view on future standardization issues that the ITU needs to address. We discussed topics like satellite communications and data centers. And, of course, the ITU is also looking into digital topics, viewing holistic AI and standards for AI as very important for future work in ITU-T. All the results are officially available in a communiqué summarizing the key topics, which the ITU then uses for future decisions within ITU-T management meetings.

The ITU-T CxO meeting 2025 was held in the Rohde & Schwarz headquarters in Munich

ITU-T CxO Roundtable 2025

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ITU-T CxO Roundtable 2025

Beyond meetings and conferences, can you share specific project examples where Rohde & Schwarz has collaborated with the ITU to address telecommunications challenges?

Sure. An important task for regulators is to provide telecommunications solutions within a certain QoS and QoE. Rohde & Schwarz has been working with the ITU-T, according to their standards, on how to define and measure KPIs in a reproducible way. These measurements must be comparable. It’s very important for regulators, if you want to enforce standards, that your measurements are sound and reproducible.

Another example: Currently, ITU-R is progressing on a new edition of the handbook for radio monitoring. We are happy to contribute to this work with our expertise. Spectrum monitoring needs to keep up with the modern challenges in frequency management to ensure efficient spectrum usage. It’s no secret that our radio spectrum is becoming increasingly crowded and denser, with applications like smart cities and smart meters. The resource is finite, and we need to ensure all these applications fit efficiently into the RF spectrum.

Looking ahead, we’re also following the evolving security landscape very closely. While quantum key distribution (QKD) remains a developing technology – and 2025 marked the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology – practical, widespread deployment is still some time off. The applications for quantum computers are extremely diverse. We were pleased to collaborate with partners like Zurich Instruments on explorations in this space, and we are contributing our expertise in test and measurement to validate and characterize the performance of new implementations as standards mature. On the other hand, quantum computers have the potential to break current encryption algorithms, and this requires a proactive shift to post quantum cryptography (PQC).

Emerging technologies and future focus

Looking ahead, what areas of collaboration between Rohde & Schwarz and the ITU are most promising?

Well, first, let’s continue with the successful cooperations we already have. For example, we plan an ITU-D academy training for “advances in spectrum monitoring” in 2026, like we’ve done in the past, and we are looking forward to good participation. It’s very important that we continue this successful cooperation, as new technical challenges are always ahead.

However, we’re also looking into new fields. As an example, I’d point out the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative from the UN. This is very important for keeping the public informed in case of natural disasters. Our 5G Broadcast solution could fit into pillar three of this initiative, led by the ITU, which addresses the dissemination and transmission of warning messages. It can blend into a warning mix that’s available to the public. The major benefit of 5G Broadcast is that it reaches electronic devices – smartphones – via a broadcast standard. Broadcast already has a very resilient infrastructure.

From a technical point of view, we can leverage cell broadcast technology to reach all mobile phones via a resilient infrastructure and generate warning messages, offering audio, visual and barrier-free information.

Finally, how does Rohde & Schwarz envision the future of telecommunications over the next five to ten years, and what role will the ITU play?

That’s a question for a crystal ball! But without a doubt, we are looking into the development of 6G – IMT-2030, as it’s called by the ITU. We have a countdown to the year when this service will be available. The ITU has already developed the framework for 6G, outlining the technological performance criteria.

We will see more development in ubiquitous connectivity, along with a more important role for artificial intelligence, meaning these networks need to be AI-native. We’ll also see extensions in performance indicators, like latency, data rate and spectrum efficiency.

Importantly, we’re already seeing a more merged approach to satellite and terrestrial communications, with operators increasingly cooperating. If this happens and new types of regulations need to be in place to cover these developments, the ITU will have plenty of work. And we’re heading to the next World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027, where 70 % of the topics already deal with satellite connectivity.

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