by Gerald E. Oberst Jr.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is in the midst of efforts to reform its operations and functioning. The Working Group on Reform, or WGR, will have completed its second meeting in Geneva by the time this article is published. The Reform Advisory Panel (RAP) chosen by the ITU Secretary General has already released the results of its second meeting in March. That March report is not, alas, particularly useful and contains clear threats to the satellite industry.

The RAP panel members consist of 27 telecommunications ministers, government officials, regulators, and industry participants. Some of the RAP recommendations directly relevant to the satellite industry are laudable, including the generic “take a stronger role in harmonization of spectrum use and orbital slots” or “review problems involved with ‘paper satellites.'” It is helpful that the report recommends that processes should be simplified, where possible, to reduce the backlog in satellite coordination.

Close review of the annexes to the report reveal, however, that there is no clear idea on how these platitudes can be implemented, except for a few ideas that are not likely to be adopted anytime soon.

How did this reform process start? The 1998 Plenipotentiary meeting of the ITU adopted Resolution 74 calling for a review of the “management, functioning and structure of the Union as well as the rights and obligations of member states and sector members.” All of the participants in the reform process recognize that this review is even more important now than ever, as the ITU is starting to lose its legitimacy due to the fast pace of Internet developments. One participant in the RAP meeting even referred to this imperative as “evolveordie.now.com.”

The ITU sector that most closely affects the satellite industry is the Radiocoms Sector, responsible for coordination and registration of satellite networks. This role is universally recognized as among the most important ITU functions. One RAP submission noted that this function is “perhaps the essential role and strength” of the ITU. Most other submissions noted that this role will likely increase in importance and that even the ITU’s harshest critics acknowledge the competent work of the ITU in the management of spectrum and allocation of orbital slots.

The longest RAP submission in the March report, and the only one with a detailed assessment of how to improve treatment of satellite orbital and frequency filings, contains suggestions such as creating a “global FCC” to license satellite services having global or regional implications. It proposes that the ITU Radiocoms Sector should be able to refuse to register satellite networks that appear to it to insufficiently take “the global public interest” into account. It suggests that the ITU also should refuse to register assignments where “there are doubts” as to the ability of the notifying state to implement international obligations. Finally, it suggests that the satellite industry pay large annual fees to the ITU, and at least notes a preference that the sums could also be given to the United Nations or the World Health Organization.

Get real. These suggestions are not useful for ITU reform, since few if any nations in the world would agree to them. Developing countries might agree with the suggestion that high satellite network fees could be used in their favor and to decrease the financial contribution of the whole membership. But why should the satellite industry fund a disproportionate part of the ITU as a whole, or act as a money pot for development activities? Further, the effect of high fees would likely prevent developing countries from becoming space faring nations of the future.

Fortunately, a more detailed analysis appears to be shaping up in the WGR itself. Ideas that have been submitted to it already include specific suggestions on changing the details of the publication and coordination process, to reduce the role of the Radiocoms Bureau in the data validation process, and to simplify the rules for frequency coordination and registration.

The ITU already has dedicated enormous resources to reviewing how to avoid paper satellites, in preparation for the 1997 World Radio Conference. It will review the reports conducted since that conference by the Radiocoms Sector on coordination statistics. It has already adopted cost-recovery fees for satellite filings, but only to pay for the freight of the administration, and not as some open ended transfer payment scheme.

What can be reliably predicted, however, is that the ITU is not going to be morphed into a global communications commission, able to reject satellite filings from sovereign nations when it judges that they do not serve the “global public interest.”

The WGR will hold five meetings up to November 2001. The ITU Plenipotentiary will review the results in 2002 and consider how to proceed. Let’s hope the final WGR results are more useful than the RAP report.

Gerry Oberst is a partner in the Brussels office of the Hogan & Hartson law firm. His email address is [email protected].