VITAL STATISTICS<strong>Back</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Contents</strong>36About Aon ExplorerAon Explorer is the strategy consulting arm of Aon France in the aerospace and telecoms markets. Resulting from theacquisition of Vista Advisers in January 2005, Aon Explorer Strategy & Finance has developed a thorough expertise inbusiness plans, feasibility studies, companies due-diligence both for the satellite industry and the finance community.Please contact Laurence Journez, Vice President, tel: +33 1 5875 6064, email: laurence_journez@aon.frOc<strong>to</strong>ber 2006SATMAGAZINE.COM
MARKET INTELLIGENCESatellite & Terrestrial:<strong>Back</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Contents</strong>Is C-band about <strong>to</strong> be the “Conflict-band”?By Martin Jarrold,Chief of International Program Development, GVF37The satellite industry is facing amajor threat <strong>to</strong> its successfulbusiness operations worldwide,one that will overwhelmingly compromiseits ability <strong>to</strong> serve the missioncriticalcommunications requirements ofits millions of cus<strong>to</strong>mers on everycontinent, in every sec<strong>to</strong>r, across allvertical markets. If national and internationalgovernment organizations fail <strong>to</strong>intervene effectively <strong>to</strong> limit this trend,the satellite industry may well beprevented from supplying Fixed (FSS)and Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) – invoice, data and video – in both developedand developing nations, everywhere.Right now – in coordination withGVF – a wide range of satellite industryrelatedorganizations around the worldare developing initiatives <strong>to</strong> challengethis development, and subsequentMarket Intelligence Reports will keep<strong>SatMagazine</strong>.com readers fully updatedregarding these vitally importantstrategies.The “Conflict-Band”The ‘extended’ C-band frequencies– in the range 3.4 <strong>to</strong> 3.7 GHz – havealready been identified by a number ofnational administrations for use by newterrestrial services such as BroadbandWireless Access (BWA) and WiMax. Inaddition, still more administrations areconsidering deployment of these newservices in the ‘standard’ C-band – 3.7<strong>to</strong> 4.2 GHz – frequency range. Already,in countries where WiMax services havebeen introduced, there have beensignificant in-band and out-of-bandOc<strong>to</strong>ber 2006interference problems and serviceinterruptions for satellite groundstations. According <strong>to</strong> David Hartshorn,Secretary General of the GVF, “suchinterruptions have been identified ashaving occurred across Africa, and inAustralia, Bolivia, around the Caribbean,in China, Fiji, Hong Kong, Indonesia,and Russia.”In Hong Kong, the Office of theTelecommunications Authority (OFTA)issued a report earlier this year – entitled‘Report of Working Group on Assessmen<strong>to</strong>f Potential Interference betweenBroadband Wireless Access Systems inthe 3.4 – 3.6 GHz Band and the FixedSatellite Services in the 3.4 – 4.2 GHzBand’ (RSAC Paper 5/2006) – whichconcluded that without the implementationof technical constraints, principallygeographic separation and the use ofLNB filters – a very costly option forboth BWA opera<strong>to</strong>rs and FSS users –the deployment of BWA services in the3.5 GHz band would lead <strong>to</strong> interferenceproblems in the entire C-band (3.4 <strong>to</strong> 4.2GHz), making a wide and cost-effectivedeployment of BWA systems in arestricted geography like that of HongKong very difficult.And this is not all. In addition <strong>to</strong>BWA systems, C-band spectrum is beingtargeted for the deployment of terrestrialmobile services – IMT. The InternationalTelecommunications Union ITU-RWorking Party 8F, which is responsiblefor the terrestrial component of AgendaItem 1.4 – ‘Future Development of IMT-2000 and Systems Beyond IMT-2000’ –of the next World RadioCommunicationsConference (WRC-2007), has includedthe 3.4 <strong>to</strong> 4.2 GHz frequency range as apotential candidate band for IMT.Both BWA and IMT can besimilarly characterized, in that both havelarge numbers of ubiqui<strong>to</strong>usly deployedbase stations and user terminals. FSSsatellite systems deliver extremely weaksignals which are highly sensitive inboth the standard and extended C-bandranges. The most effective solution <strong>to</strong>avoid interference problems from theseservices is <strong>to</strong> separate the systems byimplementing exclusion zones aroundexisting FSS earth stations. ITU-R(including Working Party 8F), <strong>to</strong>getherwith several ITU studies within WorkingParties 4A and 8F, have recognized theneed for exclusion zones. However,these are essentially impractical in thecase of ubiqui<strong>to</strong>usly deployed C-bandantennas (as such zones cannot bedefined) and for C-band antennas atknown locations the width of such zonesmay go up several hundreds of kilometers,thus preventing the deployment ofterrestrial IMT over very large areas.Furthermore, the implementation ofexclusion zones would negatively affectSATMAGAZINE.COM
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