And the report of the International Astronomical Union’s UTC Working Group
describes a similar lack of consensus to what Steve describes:
http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/earthor/utc/report_WG_UTC_2014.pdf
Sometimes a lack of consensus implies a lack of interest. This is not such a
case. Rather, informed persons have strongly disjoint positions. In such a case
a framework is needed to address the concerns of all parties. For instance, the
chairs’ summary of “The Colloquium on Decoupling Civil Timekeeping from Earth
Rotation” discusses diverse issues and options that need to be accommodated
whatever decision is taken:
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/futureofutc/2011/preprints/01_AAS_11-660.pdf
Outside the two meetings organized through the American Astronautical Society
(http://futureofutc.org), there have been few discussions of the engineering
and societal implications of redefining Coordinated Universal Time. A lack of
consensus regarding the underlying engineering issues cannot persist, whether
UTC is redefined at WRC-15 or not.
A good first step would be for ITU to rather define a brand-new timescale under
a different name, leaving UTC for backwards compatibility. This would certainly
require a level of effort to explicitly address new engineering concerns – but
that effort is required under any scenario. Consensus must be found if
rock-solid timekeeping infrastructure is to be built and operated.
Consensus already exists that ITU can do whatever it wants by defining a new
timescale under a new name.
Rob Seaman
Network Time Foundation
—
> On Oct 3, 2015, at 11:45 PM, Steve Allen <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> WRC-15 is just a month hence. The deadline for submission of proposals
> is October 19, and so far the contributions do not show anything related
> to Agenda Item 1.14.
>
> The final meeting of the European Conference of Postal and
> Telecommunications Authorities (CEPT) Electronic Communications
> Committee (ECC) Conference Preparatory Group (CPG) happened in
> September. They found no consensus on Agenda Item 1.14 so they have
> no European Common Proposal (ECP) document for that.
>
> Instead they do have a brief which explains why there is no common
> position. That brief is
> CPG15(15)084 Annex IV-15 - CEPT Brief on 1.14.docx
> which can be found inside this zip file
> http://www.cept.org/Documents/cpg/27331/CPG15(15)084-Annex-IV_CEPT-Briefs-from-AI-11-to-AI-10
>
> That brief gives a table of advantages and disadvantages followed by
> the known positions of many agencies around the world. Many of the
> agencies have no position, and others disagree, so no consensus
> is evident.
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