No Middle Ground Between Satellite and Telecoms

Providing Other Options

Tom Choi, CEO of Asia Broadcast Satellite, believes other spectrum bands are better suited for WiMax players. “WiMax for mobile communications have much better capacity available in S-band, L-band or even in UHF band where there are better link performances. C-band from 3 to 4 gigahertz is simply not good for indoor or mobile coverage when compared with the spectrum available in the 800 to 2 gigahertz range,” he says. “If point-to-point communications is considered for WiMax, 5 to 6 gigahertz should be the choice, as there is plenty of capacity available there and no resistance from the satellite/GSM/broadcasting community. It’s highly unlikely that in countries of Southeast Asia, where C-band is an integral part of communications, that WiMax will win out over satellites.”

Peter Jackson, CEO of AsiaSat, also believes the interference issues will affect more than just the developing countries in Asia, since heavy rainfall limits the use of most other spectrums, and satellite-based telecommunications services “have to use the satellite C-band frequency for all services that demand the high reliability that Ku-band cannot meet. … However, with the low cost of terrestrial fiber, our customers only use satellite where it is impossible to have terrestrial connections, so I would assume these services would have to move to Ku-band and live with the level of service that Ku-band can provide. But Ku-band generally has limited geographic coverage or just serves a single country so a large coverage regional service would be impossible.”

While recognizing the importance of C-band to the satellite industry, iDirect Technologies believes it may have a way to improve the ability of Ku-band to provide services in areas where rain fade is an everyday problem. The company will introduce before the end of the year a DVB-S2 product line with adaptive coding and modulation that will provide customers with bandwidth efficiency improvements.

“We absolutely recognize the interference issues,” says David Bettinger, iDirect’s CTO. “We have experienced them ourselves. … Coming out with DVB-S2 on the outbound channel and then adaptive coding and modulation on the inbound channel. We will have a completely adaptive system that can better handle rain fade and optimize performance. Our belief is that you will be able to use Ku-band service in areas formerly restricted to C-band. The downside is that because there is not a huge Ku-band market in those areas, I’m not sure how much satellite coverage there is and how long we will have to wait for coverage. I’m sure you can get Ku-band across Africa and Asia, but it’s probably underused.”

Bettinger describes the technology as “an iDirect-only solution for an industry opportunity. C-band has very little rain fade problems, which is why it is used in high rain regions. But it doesn’t rain all the time, so with the adaptive coding and modulation available on the outbound channel, when we introduce the inbound channel, then you have a system to adaptively handle rain fade without falling out of network or designing rain fade loss into the network,” he says. He does not envision the solution as a replacement for C-band spectrum, but says, “We are hoping there is a market opportunity by going for the C-band market with a cheaper Ku-band space segment and equipment.”

Robert Bednarek, CEO of SES New Skies, believes the WiMax and telecoms need to look elsewhere for spectrum but also hints that satellite players have to adjust their mindset when protecting their interests. “The satellite industry has had spectrum battles in the past. We have prevailed in some of those by demonstrating the value we bring to the public and we are all able to enjoy the fruits of that labor today,” he says. “We are a big industry. There is a lot of investment in our systems. There are a lot of customers. We span the globe. Perhaps we are not as comfortable with clearly defining and explaining our role as an industry as those in the terrestrial world. Perhaps some in the industry have become more focused on paying debt than creating and running services but this doesn’t remove the obligation for all of us in the satellite industry to speak for the vital services we offer. Any industry that uses spectrum, first must, defend its use of this spectrum, and then work to obtain more spectrum for its expansion. I don’t blame the WiMax and IMT proponents for looking for spectrum; they just need to look for it somewhere else.”

No Middle Ground Between Satellite and Telecoms

Providing Other Options

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