For a while, the satellite industry’s battle to retain C-band spectrum seemed to be a losing proposition, as well-financed telecommunications players were lobbying hard to gain access to the bandwidth. However, the satellite industry found its collective voice and won the fight for the valuable spectrum. More importantly, the effort seems to have provided a wake-up call, as satellite players have learned they must remain vigilant in order to protect their access to bandwidth and be prepared for similar efforts by potential competitors in the future.
When satellite players look at 2007, it will be remembered as the year the industry stepped forward and won a huge spectrum battle against the telecommunications industry. Events at the World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC-07) concerning access to C-band spectrum went overwhelmingly in the favor of the satellite industry.
Agenda Item 1.4 looked into whether part of C-band spectrum should be used for advanced wireless services, but the decision ruled against a global C-band identification for IMT (international mobile telecommunications) services, including WiMax, with restrictions and protections for satellite services also placed within the band. “The WRC-07 outcome was everything that the industry could have desired,” says Robert Bell, executive director, World Teleport Association. “The risk was large: that C- and extended C-bands would be overwhelmed by terrestrial interference, disrupting vital services around the world, creating new capacity shortages and forcing the industry to adapt. With their vote for ‘No Change,’ the national regulators showed their understanding of the critical role these bands play in entertainment, public safety, security and commerce.”
Some believe this victory was achieved in the face of daunting odds. “When the C-band spectrum battle really began heating up, many believed that the satellite industry had no chance standing up against such big telecom players,” says David Hartshorn, secretary general of the Global VSAT Forum said. “We were facing an industry much, much larger than ours and one that is heavily supported by major players like Nokia, Motorola and Intel, just to name a few. All in all, it was probably the best outcome that we could expect to achieve under the circumstances.”
High Stakes
Defeat on the issue ultimately could have led to satellite’s ultimate withdrawal from the entire band. “Say in the worst case, the band had been opened for unregulated IMT use, we, over time, would have had to have abandoned the band,” says Robert Bednarek, CEO, SES News Skies. “There were some very well done technical studies that showed that if you had a terrestrial transmitter operating in the C-band satellite frequency, you were unable to receive the satellite’s signals at Earth stations in the vicinity of such a transmitter. If you extrapolate that across the whole satellite C-band allocation, you are talking about hundreds of thousands of dishes being knocked out of action. Theoretically, this would have been replaced by a fairly undefined terrestrial service. That would have been a complete disaster, not only for the satellite industry, but for all of the users and customers.”
By all accounts, it took a significant collective effort to keep terrestrial services from gaining access to C-band. Kalpak Gude, vice president of regulatory affairs at Intelsat says he was surprised by such a positive income and admits that the satellite industry had not “fully appreciated the risks that they were facing. ... That was clearly our fault. When we started to get concerned and started to notice that there was some traction in the argument and the level of effort coming from the IMT community, we began putting on a strong effort of our own to show that we are not sitting on 800 megahertz of spectrum that is under-utilized,” he says. “The IMT community at that point, two to three years ago, was arguing that C-band was old technology, it was not very significantly used and the satellite industry was moving toward Ku-/Ka-band, so no harm, no foul. Our effort was to show that this was a misinterpretation.”
Those concerted efforts have bought the industry together, says Hartshorn, who paints the battle as a David versus Goliath struggle. “We were surprised to prevail against seemingly overwhelming odds, but on reflection, what we lacked in sheer size we more than made up for with support from the user community, from governments and — it should be noted — from a coordinated effort by the entire satellite communications community,” he says. “Individual companies chipped in, including operators, system integrators, manufacturers ... even the world’s leading launch services provider — Arianespace — made a major contribution.”
Jones Killimbe, CEO of African satellite operator, Rascom (Regional African Satellite Communications Organization), says he was “not surprised” the satellite industry had achieved such a favorable outcome. “The satellite industry can feel satisfied that we were able to safeguard the interests of the C-band users, but we were fighting for a legitimate cause because C-band is very important for the satellite industry which has been around for several decades and will be around for generations to come. The satellite industry achieved what I would call the best possible outcome at WRC-07.”
Such a decisive victory also was important in terms of future spectrum battles, says Hartshorn. “Much has been said about the consequences for the satellite industry had WRC not been as successful as it was,” he says. “I would simply add that this battle was not just about C-band; it was about the viability and role of satellite communications in general and, to that extent, the future of all satellite spectrum hung in the balance: L, X, Ku, Ka, S. You name it. Had we lost the C-band battle, other satcom bands would have been seen as soft targets by terrestrial interests.”
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