Some of the different synonyms for interference include: hinder, obstruct, impede, hold up, hamper, disturb and be noisy. One by one, all of these were used by a panel of senior satellite executives discussing the negative effects of satellite interference and the industry’s collective fight against it.
   The moderator, Robert Ames, president of SUIRG (Satellite User Interference Reduction Group), framed the problem by letting the audience know that satellite interference is increasing at an alarming rate. Ames stated flatly that thousands of interference events happen globally every week and that the problem will not go away by itself.
    Jeff Kimble, senior principal support engineer at Intelsat, said 95 percent to 98 percent of all satellite interference was unintended and unintentional. As Ames said, they typically are an “oops moment.” He said the goal of all satellite operators is to create an environment where satellite is the favored method of communications.
    Kimble identified three areas which, if improved, would dramatically reduce occurrences of satellite interference: training and certifications of engineers, equipment certification, and carrier identification. Like any intermittent electrical or mechanical problem, rogue carriers plague the industry because they cannot be identified and because they are often short-lived, lasting minutes to several days.
    Dick Tauber, vice president of transmission systems at CNN, pointed out the tremendous cost of interference to broadcasters, noting that video, unlike data packets which can be resent if there is interference, suffers tremendously. Satellite interference causes us to lose both revenue and audience. Our customers won’t watch hash on the screen. They will simply turn their televisions off and do something else, he said.
    One of the challenges is that manufacturers of video encoders, VSATs and modem manufacturers all need to implement different types of solutions. Tauber noted that carrier ID will not solve problems like Captain Midnight or countries which intentionally jam satellite signals, but it will help solve the occurrences of a large percentage of interference problems.
    Martin Coleman, director of Colem, outlined the collaborative steps taken by the satellite industry to help move the carrier ID initiative forward. Coleman has been working specifically with manufactures of video encoders and acknowledged the hard work of David Hartshorn of the Global VSAT Forum (GVF) working with VSAT manufacturers. Coleman was pleased to announce that key encoder manufacturers, including Ericsson/Tandberg, have stepped up, committing to integrate carrier ID into their new products. The first versions will be available by the second quarter.
    Jeff Watts, senior manager, payload management operations at SES, pointed out that each of the four largest FSS operators pledged their support of carrier ID in the opening roundtable discussion at SATELLITE 2010 Monday. “There has been big focus on carrier ID in 2009 and will continue this year,” he said.
Watts pointed out that carrier ID is similar in concept to the ATIS (analog transmission identification system) used in analog transmissions. The system, while quite simple, embedded the operator’s phone number in the analog video signal, allowing rogue carriers to be identified. “The same concepts can be applied in the digital world,” he said.
    Bob Potter, president/CEO of SAT Corp., detailed a demonstration conducted in 2006 to test the feasibility of carrier ID. “We wanted to demonstrate that we have the ability to read the ID information in a video stream and then display it,” he said. “We successfully demonstrated that we now have that ability.”
    Potter said the benefit of working with all of the video manufactures is that they must all work to a global DVB –S or DVB-S2 standard. This allows some standardization across all manufacturers. He concluded that unique identifiers will allow the same capability in VSAT systems and in satellite modems, but it is not yet clear whether everyone can agree on a common identifier or if interference detection systems will be forced to look for a dozen different identifiers from different manufacturers.