O3B Networks and New Skies Satellites Australia - ACMA

O3b Teleport Services (Australia) Pty Ltd
Level 22
45 Clarence St.
Sydney, NSW 2000
AUSTRALIA
www.o3bnetworks.com
New Skies Satellites Australia Pty Ltd
Level 31
88 Phillip Street
Sydney NSW 2000
AUSTRALIA
www.ses.com
VIA E-MAIL to: spectrum.outlook@acma.gov.au
08 March 2013
Manager
Spectrum Outlook and Review Section
Australian Communications and Media Authority
PO Box 78
Belconnen ACT 2616
AUSTRALIA
SUBMISSION TO CONSULTATION ON “POSSIBLE CHANGES TO FUTURE ARRANGEMENTS IN THE 28/31
GHz BANDS” (IFC 3/2013)
Dear Sir or Madam:
O3b Teleport Services (Australia) Pty Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of O3b Limited (“O3b”), an
Australian apparatus licence holder. O3b welcomes the opportunity to comment on the ACMA’s
consultation paper IFC 3/2013 “Possible changes to future arrangements in the 28/31 GHz bands”
dated January 2013. O3b also made a submission on these issues in the May 2012 Spectrum Licence
Framework Consultation and the August 2012 5 Year Spectrum Outlook.
New Skies Satellites Australia Pty Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES S.A. (“SES”), which holds an
Australian Telecommunications Carrier Licence. SES S.A. has a fleet of 52 satellites worldwide. As
indicated in this joint submission, SES shares the same views and position as O3b concerning the
possible licensing arrangement in the 28/31 GHz bands.
O3b and SES strongly support the ACMA's "preliminary view that a reversion to apparatus licensing
would be best" (i.e., Option 2), to provide satellite operators long-term certainty of access to Ka-band
spectrum allocated internationally for fixed-satellite service (FSS), and to encourage the introduction of
new competitive broadband services to ensure full utilisation of this important band. The current
ACMA spectrum licence regime has segmented the Ka band and made it especially difficult for
broadband satellite services, such as those O3b will provide, to find useful contiguous bandwidth.
As previously advised, O3b is building a new Ka-band, non-geostationary satellite system (“NGSO”)
scheduled for a first launch in May 2013. O3b has already established a gateway earth station in Perth,
Western Australia, and is currently constructing a second at Dubbo, New South Wales. O3b’s initial
constellation will operate with uplinks in the 28 GHz band of concern to this Consultation, specifically
the 27.6-28.4 GHz and 28.6-29.1 GHz bands.
SES has plans to equip its future satellites with uplink capabilities in the 28 GHz band, to allow for more
diverse and flexible operations in the Asia Pacific region. Therefore, in view of the intention of SES to
provide such uplink connectivity in Australia, SES believes that the apparatus licensing approach would
be a better option to fulfil the needs of the FSS industry.

O3b and SES provide comments below on each of the discussion points in this Consultation.
Discussion point 1
The ACMA invites stakeholder feedback on its preliminary view that the 28/31 GHz bands are currently
underutilised.
O3b and SES agree that the 28/31 GHz bands are currently under-utilised in Australia. A contributing
factor to this under-utilisation is the band segmentation in Australia in the 28 GHz part of the
internationally-allocated Ka-band. This segmentation had the perverse effect of keeping fallow
spectrum that was intended to support wide-scale deployment of terrestrial LMDS services. When
LMDS did not develop as expected, the segmentation prevented other services (most notably satellitebased
ones) from making efficient use of the broader spectrum, and bringing innovative services to the
Australian public.
Discussion point 2
The ACMA invites stakeholder views on future anticipated use of the bands. In particular, information
on any emerging services in the bands that the ACMA has not identified would greatly assist in its
consideration of appropriate future arrangements in the bands.
As a Stakeholder, O3b anticipates that it will make significant use of the28 GHz bands in the future. In
fact, O3b intends to provide both gateway and customer broadband services throughout the 27.6-28.4
GHz and 28.6-29.1 GHz bands in Australia following the launch of its initial satellites, scheduled for May
2013 (with a second launch currently scheduled in August 2013). O3b’s customer channels could be as
wide as 216 MHz in each direction. O3b has already established a 28 GHz Ka-band gateway earth
station in Perth, Western Australia, and is currently constructing a second at Dubbo, New South Wales.
In addition, O3b notes that Australia has a large number of Ka-band satellite network filings at various
stages of notification, and that NBNCo has announced plans for several Ka-band earth stations in
Australia for its own Ka-band broadband satellite services in Australia.
Furthermore, due to the congestion currently experienced in the C- and Ku-bands, more satellite
operators are looking into the higher frequencies to deploy their services. Since the 28 GHz band is
allocated for FSS in accordance with the ITU Radio Regulations, SES and O3b are of the view that there
will be an increased use of this band for satellite services in the near future.
O3b and SES support the need for ACMA to develop a technical framework based on apparatus
licensing for the 28 GHz band that will assist the introduction of new FSS services.
Discussion point 3
The ACMA invites stakeholder comment on whether apparatus or spectrum licensing in the 28/31 GHz
bands may best provide certainty to incumbent spectrum licensees and maximise the overall public
benefit derived from use of the bands.
O3b and SES strongly support the ACMA view that re-introducing apparatus licensing in the 28/31 GHz
bands is the most efficient way to accommodate the range of services that are emerging as high-value
uses of the this band. O3b considers that the 15 year period of the initial 28 GHz spectrum licence
provided sufficient time and certainty of access for the incumbent licensees to deploy their planned
services. That this did not happen highlights one of the dangers of spectrum-licensing. Furthermore, the
incumbent 28 GHz spectrum licensee has not been willing to sublease spectrum on reasonable
commercial terms. (Please refer to O3b’s response to the 2012 5 Year Spectrum Outlook.) The
spectrum licensing of the 28/31 GHz bands has not achieved any significant public benefit.
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As a result, O3b and SES support Option 2, which will facilitate the introduction of new services that can
maximise the overall public benefit to be derived from the 28/31 GHz bands. O3b and SES consider that
Apparatus Licensing is better because it is hard to predict which technologies and services will best
succeed in the marketplace.
Discussion point 4
The ACMA invites stakeholder comment on whether it might be appropriate to retain spectrum
licensing in some parts of the 28/31 GHz bands and, if so, in what geographic areas or frequency
ranges.
O3b and SES do not support the retention of spectrum licensing in the 28/31 GHz bands, let alone in
any part of the internationally allocated FSS Ka-band. Such an arrangement would continue the 28 GHz
band segmentation that interferes with the FSS requirement for contiguous wideband channels in this
band. Satellite services are particularly hard to provide if there is either band or geographic
segmentation.
Invitation
The ACMA invites members of the public to make representations on the recommendation it would
make to the minister.
As O3b and SES strongly support Option 2, and endorse the ACMA plan to advise the Minister that,
following consideration of a range of matters (including current arrangements in the 28 GHz band,
international trends in use of the band, and stakeholder views), the 28 GHz band should no longer be
allocated via the issue of spectrum licences. O3b and SES therefore would recommend that the
Minister revoke the Radiocommunications (Spectrum Designation Notice) No.1 of 1998.
Additional Issues­
In relation to section 3.3 “Pricing arrangements”, O3b has previously expressed its concern to the
ACMA that its spectrum fees are among the highest in the world, especially in the Ka bands. The ACMA
is well aware of the increasing global pressure to provide broadband services using the Ka-band,
especially in large countries like Australia with rural and remote communities dependent on satellite
services. And yet, under the current spectrum fee rules 1 , the annual fee for a broadband satellite
service at the Ka-band (such as O3b’s) is three times as high as other countries in which O3b is putting
similar earth stations. Some countries – such as the United States - have no spectrum fee at all, and
only impose modest earth station fees.
Under the current formula, all operations between 14.5 and 31.3 GHz are charged at the same rate.
That means disparate services such as earth exploration, mobile services, terrestrial, and satellite
services are charged the same rate, regardless of whether they have the same market value or
technological issues. As for the bandwidth variable, the ACMA’s spectrum fee formula was created
years ago when satellites used the more traditional 36-MHz transponder to provide services. Since
then, access to the internet has been declared by the UN to be a fundamental human right 2 and
Australia itself has declared the benefits of broadband. 3 Wireless broadband services (terrestrial and
satellite alike) demand wide bandwidth to provide this national good. Broadband service providers
should not be penalized. Consequently, O3b recommends and requests that the ACMA review its
1 Apparatus licence fee schedule (2011).
2
UN General Assembly, Human Rights Council, A/HRC/20/L.13, 29 June 2012.
3
See development of the National Digital Economy Strategy,
http://www.nbn.gov.au/files/ndes_site/ndes_section1-web-1.html
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apparatus licence fee formulas with an eye towards encouraging the provision of broadband services
and benchmarking its annual spectrum fees against those of the other major spectrum regulators.
O3b and SES look forward to continuing the dialogue with the ACMA on this consultation and other
satellite-related topics. Please contact the undersigned for any clarification or additional information.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. Glen Tindall
Ms. Joslyn Read
Vice President, Sales, Asia-Pacific
Vice President, Regulatory
SES
O3b
T: +65 9299 3930 T: +1 202 478 7183
Glen.Tindall@ses.com
Joslyn.Read@o3bnetworks.com
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