Progress on U.S.-Mexico Cross Border Security Communications

Update on Progress
Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs
Washington, DC
March 24, 2008

Senior U.S. and Mexican telecommunications officials meet on a regular basis as the High Level Consultative Commission on Telecommunications (HLCC). Last August, five senior U.S. and Mexican HLCC leaders, who serve as the telecommunications authorities in their governments, tasked their respective “working level” subordinates to prepare a plan to improve cross border security communications. Today, the “working level” officials in the United States announced in Washington that they have finalized a draft recommended plan (Plan) for presentation to the HLCC senior leaders to fulfill this task.

Last August, the five HLCC senior leaders encouraged their working level officials to work with federal, state, and local public safety officials in the border area of both countries to identify cross border security communications needs. To accomplish this, those officials set up a special group of U.S. and Mexican experts called the Security Communications Task Group (Task Group) to prepare the draft Plan. The Task Group held meetings with federal, state and local officials in the border area to discuss not only what was needed in the plan, but also to determine the most technically supportive and cost-effective solution for both sides. Based on the decisions that resulted from the meetings and the subsequent diplomatic and technical actions that were required by both governments, the Task Group officials completed an assessment that defined those actions needed to ensure that the new facilities would meet the domestic telecommunication regulatory requirements of both governments and existing international obligations of both countries.

The leaders of the Task Group were telecommunication officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and from Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Safety. On February 7, 2008, the Task Group leaders presented their draft Plan to the HLCC working-level officials so that it could be finalized for presentation to and adoption by the HLCC’s five senior leaders.

During the meeting of U.S. and Mexican working-level officials in Mexico City from February 7 to February 15, 2008, those officials considered the draft Plan presented by the Task Group, and endorsed certain future actions that needed to be taken by the HLCC’s senior leaders to bring the plan into effect. Among the actions that will be recommended by working-level officials to the HLCC senior leaders was that the United States and Mexico negotiate and conclude a new bilateral agreement that would provide radio interference protection for the telecommunications infrastructure needed to support new cross border communications networks in ten city-pairs (such as San Diego and Tijuana) along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The HLCC senior leaders are expected to adopt the final Plan and forward it to the federal departments in each government with responsibility for national security for appropriate action.

The five HLCC senior leaders are the top-level federal officials in each country with the responsibility for oversight and implementation of the domestic and international communications obligations of their respective countries. The senior leaders take joint actions through the HLCC’s bi-national process in order to direct the negotiation, conclusion, and implementation of bilateral spectrum agreements for sharing and coordinating the use of radio spectrum along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The United States senior leaders are: Ambassador David A. Gross, United States Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, Department of State; Kevin J. Martin, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission; and Meredith Atwell Baker, Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and Acting Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The Mexican leaders are: Dr. Rafael del Villar Alrich, Under Secretary of Communications of the Mexican Secretariat of Communications and Transportation; and Hector G. Osuna Jaime, Chairman of Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Commission.

The Joint Statement issued by the HLCC senior leaders last August which contained the tasking to the working level officials can be found at: http://www.state.gov/e/eeb/rls/othr/2007/93761.htm.