talk Satellite

Australasia Satellite Forum - Battle looms over C-band spectrum sharing

A battle for C-band wireless spectrum is brewing between those who want to use the spectrum for new services such as mobile broadband and those that argue it should be retained for the satellite sector, where it is currently in wide use.

The battle is likely to play out at the International Telecommunication Union’s next World Radiocommunications Conference in 2015 in Geneva, according to panellists at the Australasia Satellite Forum 2013.

Bob Horton, a representative of the Global VSAT Forum and former chair of the Australian Communications Authority, said that groups such as the GVF and others in the satellite industry will be lobbying hard to prevent the use of C-band spectrum for anything other than satellite operations.

“We will put up a very stern fight, all the way to the WRC 15,” Horton said, noting that many nations that had previously supported a sharing of the band were now re-thinking their approach and likely to withdraw support at the next WRC gathering.

However, Australian Communications and Media Authority head of spectrum policy Andrew Kerans noted that C-band had started out as a terrestrial band before it gained widespread use in the satellite sector.

He said there was a strong view that the band could continue to be shared and would likely be used for some mobile broadband services.

“It is now a shared terrestrial/satellite band globally, but in Australia the prime band, the band we protect [for satellite], is Ku and that band is clear,” Kerans pointed out.

Kerans suggested that some satellite gateways in cities might have to relocate in future if C-band is used for mobile broadband. “It would be my view that in 20 years time there would be very few, if any, gateways left in the cities,” he said.

“I've heard the view from defence, for instance, that they want to keep C-band. Well Darwin is one of the fastest growing cities in the country and there is a facility there that is not very well protected,” he said.

“It basically boils down to the demand for spectrum versus whether that spectrum is needed for in that area, or if the facility is in a city if it can be coordinated.”

Consultant Simon Twiston-Davies, a former CEO of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia Pacific, said an opening up of C-band for mobile broadband use could impact on the region's broadcasters.

“Broadcasters from the Middle East, Pakistan and all the way down to Australia are absolutely reliant on C-band and the pressures that are being brought to bear by the IMT lobby have been distracting regional broadcasters and domestic broadcasters, but I think there's going to be a major fight,” Twiston-Davies told the forum.

“It becomes a very, very worrying issue for the 450 million homes who are receiving TV or pay-tv of
some sort, or the 900 million homes across the region who are reliant on it largely for backhaul of all kinds. So we have to, as an industry, take this very seriously and bring all the pressure that can possible be brought to bear at WRC,” he added.

John Stanton, CEO of Communications Alliance, said the industry body was in a difficult position in that it had to represent the views of both the terrestrial and the space industry players. “One of the challenges comes down to defining what highest value means. If highest value means getting the biggest bang for the bit, then it's a slam dunk for the terrestrial players.

“But around the world there are many other considerations that come to play in terms of types of services that are provided by C-band and the amount of embedded investment in countries that can't afford to replace that investment rapidly. I think it will be a real test for the maturity of WRC to see if there can be a consensus around how to reach a rational compromise,” Stanton concluded.

Geoff Long, CommsDay

Golden seams of C-band

by Simon Twiston Davies

There was some ill-natured bickering about Australian orbital slot allocations during last week’s Australasia Satellite Forum.

The claims of Adrian Ballintine of Newsat to slots for a brace of Ka-band satellites due for launch in 2015 were in the firing line. No less so were also undisclosed slots to be used by the almost US$900 million Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) space segment, chippily dubbed by one speaker as “Conroy Sat-1” and “Conroy Sat-2” after Stephen Conroy, the Australian Communications minister.

But underlying the orbital slot debates (already involving risks to millions of dollars of investment) are deep concerns that long-haul C-band satellite distribution over (and out of) Australia and in to the rest of the AsiaPac region could be swept aside by the IMT/WBA lobby during the up-coming UN-hosted WRC-15 conference in Geneva.

Newly fashionable Ka- broadband wireless services to and from commercial aircraft are all very well, but as of now they are less important than the role played by C-band.

Even so, a number of the ground engineers in the conference room seemed complacent about C-band while the regional boys (who remain reliant on the 60% of their revenues that come from video) were rather more edgy.

Indeed, the participants in last week’s Sydney gathering, presented by talkSatellite and Commsday, provided a generally upbeat take on the future for the Australian satellite market. Well it would, wouldn’t it?

Besides Newsat’s Jabiru and the NBN programmes, the 24 Ku-transponder Optus 10 should launch later this year. Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, ABS, AsiaSat, Thaicom and MeaSat are all circling the Australian market with promises of additional as of now unmet capacity.

Bandwidth efficient Ka-band High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems are the “next big thing” but C-band remains the bedrock of the business, the ultimate long-haul backbone for broadcasters across the Asia Pacific who, despite the onset of fiber distribution, rely on reliable satellite services for signal assurance.

In a more granular fashion, pleas to protect C-band from a land grab by the IMT/BWA community were reinforced by a case study presented in Sydney by service provider ITC Global which in turn provides vital C-band communications for natural resources companies.

Not least among the many reasons for the continuing importance of C-band is that rain fade issues in tropical and sub-tropical Australia, Southeast Asia and Africa make the use of other spectrum largely untenable.

And with more than 35 C-Band satellites on order around the world (approximate value US$7 billion) and a planned lifespan of almost 20 years, C-band will remain critical and must be protected.

But notwithstanding its continued importance, spectrum used for C-band is at risk from claims to the spectrum by broadband wireless operators. The growth of microcells particularly in C-band are causing increasing signal interference because the 3.7- 4.2 GHz band is not reserved solely for satellite but is these days often unthinkingly shared with some ground systems.

As described in Sydney, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) believes C-band and built-up areas cannot co-exist, implying C-band facilities must be moved to more remote areas within Australia.

That might just work in the vast empty spaces of Australia, but it certainly won’t work in densely populated rain-fade prone, rain-affected countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, southern Vietnam, India and Pakistan.

A UN International Telecommunications Union ITU-R M.2109 report concludes that spectrum shared between fixed-satellite service and IMT in the 3400-4200 MHz and 4500-4800 MHz bands require “unrealistic separation distances” of tens of kilometers. That’s physics, folks!

Any move to reserve C-band spectrum solely for mobile services must be fought vigorously keeping in mind the “golden seam” of 60% of satellite industry revenues generated by C-band spectrum.