The ITU did its best to please every last delegate at its World Radiocommunication Conference, writes Chris Bulloch

The International Telecommunication Union held its first-ever World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) outside of Geneva this spring: from May 8 to June 2. It took place in Istanbul, Turkey, under the directorship of Fatih Mehmet Yurdal, chairman of the Turkish Telecommunications Authority. It attracted 30 per cent more delegates than ever before.

The conference has generally been seen as a triumph of compromise: national delegates appeared to accept that they would only get the agreements which would lead to important new market opportunities if they were prepared to abandon entrenched national priorities before defending them to the last ditch.

IMT-2000

The conference was proudest of achieving agreement on frequencies for IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telephony), otherwise the Third Generation of mobile telephones, with global data – including Internet -, fax and video capabilities. The value of this coming service has already been demonstrated by the pounds22.48 billion (E35.68) bids for 3G licences in the UK. Even more is expected from France. Clearly, most 3G communications will be routed by terrestrial cellular networks, but satellite links are considered essential for extending coverage to areas unserved and never to be served.

Besides the two bands 1980- 2010MHz and 2170-2200MHz (respectively Earth-to-Space and vice-versa) already identified for IMT-2000 at the preceding WRC-97, this year’s conference picked six more bands. Five of these were in the L-Band region of the spectrum between 1525 and 1660.5MHz, and one in the S-Band (2483.5 -2500MHz), which can be used for satellite 3G traffic on a co-primary basis. Much of this spectrum is also assigned to Mobile Satellite bands, which means that power levels will need to be balanced.

HAPS

WRC-2000 also addressed the emergent population of HAPS (High Altitude Platform Services), primarily based on dirigibles, floating for long periods at 20-50km altitude, which promise to be used to relay broadband and cellular traffic to large urban communities.

Allocations were made for HAPS in the S band (1885-2170MHz), subject to power flux density limitations. Most of these would be shared services.

Requests, notably from Inmarsat, for 2x8MHz more frequency for generic mobile satellite services were not granted. Inmarsat says that it does not need these frequencies for its planned new I-4 satellites, but “thought they would be useful for future service development.”

Galileo

Ample spectrum was secured for GPS, GLONASS and the new EC/ESA-sponsored Galileo to operate independently, without overlapping and with full redundancy. In terms of frequencies, The Radio Navigation Satellite Service (the ITU’s generic term for all these systems) was allocated both the new L5, E5 and E6 bands, covering 1164-1215MHz and 1260- 1300MHz, together with the desired new C-Band allocation (feeder downlink) of 5010-5030MHz. These allocations entered into force on June 3, making immediate filing possible, instead of in two years time. The ITU gave due weight to the commercial potential of the new RNSS services.

Studies may yet have to determine the distance which may be needed between RNSS uplink beacons and airborne radars (for the 1300-1350MHz band) and Microwave Landing System receivers (for the 5000-5010MHz band).

Sharing between GSO and non-GSO services

The decision of SkyBridge (a non-geostationary system) prior to the last WRC in 1997 to operate in the Ku-Band rather than Ka caused widespread disquiet among operators of geostationary services. Although the ITU gave tentative approval to SkyBridge, GSO operators, notably PanAmSat, remained less happy through interference worries. There has by now been sufficient work done on power flux density limits to ensure compatibility. Eutelsat and SES also seem content that all will be well provided the non-GSOs keep to their agreed power limits. The equal need to allow non-GSO services like SkyBridge enough power to provide their needed broadband services was also taken into account in arranging suitable compromises.

BSS services

Replanning the Broadcast Satellite Service bands was not on the agenda for WRC-2000, and European industry was reluctant to disturb the status quo, but pressure from other nations (notably Arab, African and Asian states) forced it on to the list of topics to be discussed. What these counties wanted was more capacity in Ku-Band for additional analogue channels, to be operated by countries at present without access to satellites. They were afraid that existing users, primarily developed nations using capacity to broadcast digital material to regions rather than to specific states, would soon lock up all the frequencies available, leaving emergent nations without the capacity to provide service when they can afford it. This debate did not concern the Americas.

The justice of the non-European countries’ claim was accepted, and allocations were increased, to 10 channels per country for Africa (and Europe), which is also ITU Region 1, and to 12 channels per country in Region 3 (South Asia and Australasia).

Paper satellites

There is now such a large backlog of satellite network coordination requests pending (95 per cent of them for GSO services) that it would take three years to deal with it even if no new filings were accepted (or so say the Final Acts of WRC-2000).

This means that the Radio communications Bureau of the ITU can take up to three years to publish a request. An administration would then have only two years left in which to effect coordination before its application lapsed.

Earlier proposals to limit the flood by forcing applicants to make an (escrowed) cash deposit were defeated by the Conference.

The only measures adopted as a stopgap were proposals to make it mandatory to make applications electronically (by e-mail), for convenience in processing.