Concern over the potential loss of C-band spectrum for providing satellite services runs high in the Asia-Pacific region, an area of the globe that relies on the spectrum due to geographical and environmental constraints. AsiaSat CEO Peter Jackson talks to Via Satellite about the C-band issue and the potential impact for AsiaSat as well as the industry as a whole.

Via Satellite: What is your take on the demands for C-band spectrum resources and the competing arguments of telecoms and satellite players? Can the two sides reach a compromise?

Jackson: I must admit I do not understand how we got into this position. I appreciate the complex issues faced by governments in allocating spectrum but to allocate a frequency to WiMax which in a large numbers of countries is currently being used by satellites for essential services does not make sense. Perhaps governments thought that we could share the frequency, but it only required a simple test to prove that it does not work. 

It will be interesting to see what will eventually happen in Europe, where C-band is used only in selected sites, and it has been assumed they can be protected. When WiMax transmitters become very prolific and even mobile, I am sure the C-band earth stations will suffer some level of interference.

Via Satellite: One of the arguments of satellite players that is being overshadowed is the importance of C-band in developing countries for providing basic communications. What would be the ramifications for these territories if this C-band capacity was assigned to terrestrial mobile players rather than satellite?

Jackson: It is not just developing countries but all countries that experience heavy rainfall and have to use the satellite C-band frequency for all services that demand the high reliability that Ku-band cannot meet. Our experience based on the test carried out in Hong Kong by OFTA, the government body responsible for frequency allocation, was that the frequency could not be shared and the whole of the C-band frequency would become unusable by satellites.

If the C-band was allocated to WiMax in every country in Asia the 52 C-band satellites that are currently in orbit over Asia would have no business and all the services they provide would have to find another connection method. However, with the low cost of terrestrial fiber, our customers only use satellite where it is impossible to 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.

There has been talk about reassigning the so-called extended C-band to terrestrial services. The problem is that all of the C-band frontend receive equipment that is fitted on the satellite dishes that converts the very weak satellite C-band signal to a lower frequency are wideband and “see” all of the frequency from 3.4 to 4.2 gigahertz. Thus, even if a WiMax transmitter is operating at 3.5 gigahertz and not directly affecting the standard C-band — 3.6 gigahertz to 4.2 gigahertz — if it is in the vicinity of a C-band receiver it will swamp the C-band receiver making it impossible for any frequencies to be received not just the WiMax frequency.
 

Via Satellite: How likely is it that satellite players are going to lose some of this C-band capacity?

Jackson: A real issue has been the way governments now allocate frequency to the terrestrial operators. The main objective for a government in providing infrastructure services is to ensure they are provided to the public at the highest quality and at the lowest possible cost. When monopolies existed, governments would limit the return an operator could make and set quality levels. However, these did not prove to be as effective as competition and thus a method of evaluating operators who were competing for licences had to be found. There were two real alternatives, either set operating criteria that would ensure a high investment or have a simple cash auction for the licence and rely on market forces to force the operator to invest in the infrastructure in order to get a return. 

The concept of governments being able to make very large sums of money at auctions proved irresistible, and it had the advantage of being simple for the various regulators to administrator. In fact governments do not really wish to take money out of the infrastructure pot and very high licence fees could, if the operator has overestimated the income from the service, have the result of limiting the expenditure being made. 3G could well be an example of this in many countries.

Economists argue that market forces will eventually sort out the problem, as it will, but in the meantime, the country may not be getting the best possible infrastructure. As satellites compete for frequency internationally it is impossible for a national entity to auction frequency so it is excluded from the process. This obviously puts pressure on the regulator to allocate it to services they can license and sell so they will be looking at every hertz of the frequency spectrum. In Europe you can see why the regulators who saw C-band with very limited satellite use as the low hanging fruit and changed its allocation.
 

Via Satellite: If satellite players were to lose C-band spectrum, what would be the consequences for the industry and for developing countries who are more reliant on satellite to provide various applications?

Jackson: C Band has been an essential part of the Asian satellite industry for the last 30 years, contributing a considerable percentage of its revenue. AsiaSat, like most Asian satellite operators, would be significantly negatively affected if the C-band frequency became unusable. Satellites are currently built to last 15 years, and we have no ability to change the frequency once they are launched. So if the frequency was reallocated the industry would end up with billions of dollars worth of equipment in the air not producing revenue.

Via Satellite: What is going to happen over the rest of the year, and is the satellite industry in a stronger position now than it has been throughout the last few months?

Jackson: We are all preparing for the ITU World Radiocommunications meeting in October where this issue will be discussed. I think our preparations are well advanced and we have the advantage of having logic on our side. It really makes no sense to change the frequency allocation when lower frequencies are more suitable for WiMax and other terrestrial radio services, such as those available around 2.5 gigahertz or even lower which have a better building penetration performance are available.

Via Satellite: What are the key points in the satellite argument for retaining this spectrum?

Jackson: As there are applications that can only be served by satellite ,we need to facilitate their use and thus we need to allocate satellites a suitable frequency. When the ITU were faced with the same question many years ago, their studies indicated that a portion of the so-called C-band was the most suitable as it could offer a very reliable service throughout the world. They also allocated additional frequencies, one of which being Ku-band. This was a frequency that makes use of smaller dishes but is not suitable for use in heavy rainfall areas where high levels of reliability are required as it suffers from a type of attenuation called rain fade.

I can see why some regulators in countries where satellites only use a limited amount of C-band thought they could reallocate it to terrestrial without much problem, but I do not see how that can happen in regions where, for very good reasons, C-band is the lifeblood of the satellite Industry. If I was a WiMax equipment manufacturer or operator I would wish to use a common frequency worldwide and one that achieved maximum building penetration. I am not sure the satellite portion of C-band will achieve either.

Via Satellite: If we are having this conversation in early 2008, what do you expect to have happened?

Jackson: 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. 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.