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Stop The European Disease From SpreadingWhile the satellite players appear to be winning the battle in Africa and some parts of Asia, obstacles remain in Europe and some of Asia’s biggest territories ahead of the ITU meeting.
“When talking about the regional groups, the problem here is very much Europe,” says John Lothian, vice president, space development at SES Global. “You have manufacturers like Nokia in Finland, Ericsson in Sweden and the mobile operators. Because for historical reasons, there is somewhat less intensive use of C-band satellites in Europe, Europe is like a special case. What we are trying to do is avoid the European disease spreading elsewhere. If you look at region one — Europe and Africa — C-band is not the primary satellite band in Europe, but it is in Africa, [where] it is the bread and butter. Another perception people have is that C-band satellites are a dying business and IMT is a growing business, but in fact, C-band in Africa is how you get your broadband via satellite, IP services. It is providing the backbone for communications. We have to recognize that Europe is an oddball in terms of C-band, and we have to try and prevent Europe from spreading its views to other countries.”
Gude says, “Europe may go in their own direction, but even the French, who are big proponents of IMT, recently came out with a proposal and drew the line at 3.8 instead of 4.2. That is a move in the right direction, albeit not sufficient.
“The Koreans and Japanese are somewhat differently situated than the rest of the world, however, and may move in a different direction for IMT services,” says Gude. “I think we are doing a better job of educating governments and customers about the risks associated with IMT/WiMax deployment in the C-band. I think in the lower part of the band, WiMax is likely to continue to be a significant problem for satellite services. Luckily, there is less deployed satellite infrastructure in that part of the band right now, although the out-of-band problem still needs to be addressed.”
Jackson believes certain European regulators have taken a very short-term view. “Unfortunately some European regulators have taken a purely local view and allocated some of the satellite C-band frequency in their countries to WiMax, and that will be difficult to reverse,” he says. “In Asia regulators have now, I believe, recognized the problem and so they are unlikely to follow that example. We will therefore either see two sets of frequencies being used in parallel or the world will slowly change to a single lower frequency than C-band that is more suitable for terrestrial use.”
Bottom LineThe best situation for satellite players is to win the battle for C-band spectrum, but there does not seem to be much of a plan B at this stage. According to satellite industry executives, it appears that even a partial victory for the terrestrial players could have serious consequences for the satellite industry, and while the consequences may not be fatal, it could take years to recover.
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