WRC TO CONSIDER OPENING DOOR FOR ESVS WHILE PROTECTING INCUMBENTS

The FCC began an inquiry in Jan. 2002 on whether to set specific rules for ESVs, including their appropriate regulatory status. It asked whether ESVs should be moved to the mobile satellite service band and whether, if they stayed in the FSS band, the ITU Table of Frequency Allocations should be modified. Interference issues included the distance from shore beyond which ESVs would not require interference coordination with terrestrial FS operations, the means for addressing such interference concerns when inside that distance from shore and potential methods for resolving interference. The Maritime Telecommunications Network (MTN) already provides commercial satellite service, including video, telephony and Internet access via C-band dishes under an FCC special temporary authority. The company focuses on cruise, oil & gas, live broadcast and military markets, providing broadband satellite communications services for moving vessels. MTN uses commercial FSS satellites in both C-band and Ku-band for the service.

In an ex parte filing late last month, MTN urged the FCC to begin as rulemaking “that complements and helps advance the U.S. ESV proposals” at WRC before the month-long conference starts June 9 in Geneva. Europe, Asia and the Americas agree that ESVs should operate in the C- and Ku- bands, with common proposals from the Inter-American Telecom Commission (CITEL), the Conference of European Posts & Telecommunications and the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) taking similar approaches, MTN said. “The FCC’s failure to adopt an NPRM on ESVs well in advance of WRC-03 could substantially undermine the ability of the U.S. to achieve its goals” on that agenda item (designated 1.26).

But the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) cautioned the FCC last week not to adopt a proposal until after the WRC ended. “The FWCC vigorously opposes that request. We urge the Commission to await the outcome of the WRC before initiating any domestic rulemaking proceeding,” the group said in an FCC filing Fri. “To follow MTN’s suggestion would put the cart before the horse.” ESV operations aren’t permissible in the current international Table of Allocations except under the noninterference provisions of Radio Regulation 4.4. “The reason for placing the ESV item on the WRC-03 agenda was to normalize and legitimize ESVs under the international regulations. It follows that any rule the FCC might adopt (or even propose) with respect to ESVs should be patterned after the outcome of WRC-03,” the FWCC said. This WRC “may or may not adopt” a footnote to the Allocation Table covering ESVs, and if it does, the operating conditions that might accompany it still were to be decided, the group said.

The FCC hasn’t yet decided whether a proposal would be issued before or after the WRC, with timing complicated in part by coordination issues involving the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee and multiple bureaus, an FCC source said.

APT, CITEL and CEPT take a “common view” that ESVs should be covered as a footnote in the Radio Regulations and that it’s an application in the FSS service, even though that broadband operation is on a moving ship, an industry source said. A resolution adopted at WRC 2000 called for ITU to conduct studies to come up with measures to address potential interference, the source said. In the last year and a half, ITU-Radiocommunications study groups have done just that, producing 5 recommendations to provide guidelines to govts., the source said. ESVs emerged on the agendas of the WRC in 1997 and 2000. The resolution in 2000 directed ITU-R to study the minimum distance from ESV stations beyond which they were assumed not to have potential to cause interference to other services and beyond which coordination wouldn’t be required.

One potential sticking point at the conference is a view taken by some Arab administrations that ESVs should be under the Maritime Mobile Satellite Service because they operate on a moving platform. That runs counter to the view of MTN, CEPT, APT and CITEL that it should be under FSS regulations. A recent CEPT report said the Arab administrations didn’t yet have a common proposal. The CEPT report said both regions shared the view that “ESV operation bears a great potential of interference to the fixed service applications and that the use of ESVs can be allowed only if it does not have the potential to cause harmful interference to the fixed service, and that ESVs are not allowed to claim protection from the FS downlink 4 and 11 GHz bands.”

A CITEL proposal would direct that a govt. licensing an ESV service ensure that such stations didn’t cause unacceptable interference to the services of “other concerned administrations.” If such interference occurred, the ESV operator would have to eliminate the source of interference immediately upon being informed of it. CITEL also would have ESV systems include a means of identification and location and automatic mechanisms for terminating transmissions whenever a station operated outside its authorized geographic area. The CITEL position reflects that of the U.S. The American proposal says automatic mechanisms should terminate transmission whenever a station operates outside its authorized geographic area or operational limits. It proposes minimum distances from the “low water mark” as defined by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea “beyond which ESV stations will not have the potential to cause unacceptable interference to stations of other services of any administration and beyond which no agreement is necessary.” Those distances are 300 km for the 6 GHz band, which is the C-band, and 125 km for 14-14.5 GHz in the Ku- band.

The automatic shut-off language has been particularly important to incumbents using fixed terrestrial point-to- point links, which include police departments, public safety agencies, utilities and cellphone companies, which use that spectrum for backhaul, an industry source said. Typically, the point-to-point terrestrial links used by railroads, utilities and others must be frequency coordinated with FSS earth stations in the C-band, the source said. The transmit beam of an ESV moving along a coastline or in and out of a port could intersect the receiver of a terrestrial link in a coastal area and cause it to go down, the source said. For digital systems, a momentary intersection that caused interference could impel an entire link to go down and lose synchronization, the source said: “If it’s a digital link, it’s like rebooting your computer. It takes a long time.” The 6 GHz band is particularly important because that was the relocation spectrum to which microwave incumbents were relocated when the FCC cleared spectrum for PCS wireless operations, the source said. The U.S. proposal for WRC-03 includes a procedure for the automatic shut-off of an earth station transmitter if the ship leaves its coordination area, the source said.

MTN also has stressed the high stakes of the proceeding. It told the FCC last year, in the wake of the Jan. 2002 notice of inquiry, that it and other companies had invested significant sums in C-band operations and urged the Commission not to restrict ESV access to the C-band. It also said there hadn’t been any documented instances of interference to the fixed service. In last month’s ex parte filing, MTN told the FCC that it had installed broadband satellite equipment on 108 ships or rigs and had equipped 50 ships with Internet cafes.

One industry source following the WRC preparatory process said the ESV issue had been “pretty intensive,” adding: “It’s something that hopefully will be resolved at this conference.”