Subject: [NEXTEL-1] U.S. gains spectrum for airline Internet service and GPS

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 17:43:05 -0400

U.S. gains spectrum for airline Internet service and GPS

By Bob Brewin
JULY 07, 2003

The U.S. achieved its major goals at the World Radiocommunications Conference in
Geneva last week, gaining global frequencies for a Boeing-backed airline broadband
service and for GPS satellites.

The U.S. delegation to the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) World
Radio Conference (WRC), which ended Friday, achieved "meaningful success" on all
its major agenda items, said Ambassador Janice Obuchowski, head of the U.S. WRC
delegation.

Besides gaining global spectrum for wireless LANs which operate in the 5-GHz
spectrum band (see story) the U.S. delegation also prevailed on other key issues.
They included approval of new satellite spectrum for airline passenger Internet
service marketed by The Boeing Co and new frequencies for the Global Positioning
System satellite navigation system. The U.S. group also averted a regulatory
tussle that could have delayed GPS modernization, Obuchowski said in a conference
call with reporters from Geneva on Thursday.

The WRC approved use of the 14.0-GHz-14.5 GHz frequency band on a global basis for
the Connexion by Boeing airline passenger broadband Internet service. Scott
Carson, Connexion by Boeing president, said in a statement today that the WRC
action "paves the way for global introduction of our high-speed in-flight
connectivity service beginning next year."

Scandinavian Airlines System said last week it plans to offer Connexion by Boeing
on 11 of its long-range aircraft (see story).
The U.S. gained the new frequencies in the 1164-KHz-1215-KHz band for a second
civil signal for its next generation of GPS satellites, according to Scott Pace,
NASA's chief technologist for space communications and a member of the U.S.
delegation.
Pace said the new frequencies for GPS as well as a spectrum allocation for the
Galileo satellite navigation system backed by the European Union turned into an
"enormously political issue" at the WRC (see story). EU member states pushed a
proposal that would have required the two satellite navigation systems to go
through a complex and lengthy coordination process. Pace said the WRC agreed to
apply this coordination to future satellite navigation systems but not GPS or
Galileo.

Jim Reilly, past president of the American Congress of Surveying and Mapping in
Gaithersburg, Md., said the new civil signal will operate at a higher power level
than the current signal and will be easier to pick up from small receivers.
The U.S. also managed to protect a key satellite system used by the Navy to
provide classified and unclassified broadband Internet and intranet services --
including e-mail service for crew members -- to carriers and large amphibious
vessels used to deploy U.S. Marine Corps forces and command ships.  The shipboard
satellite dishes operate in what the ITU classifies as a "fixed satellite
service." Arab delegations had pressed for a redesignation of the systems as a
mobile service, which could have potentially impeded operation of the Navy
systems.

Jim Vorhies, director of international spectrum at the National Telecommunications
and Information Administration, said the WRC reached a compromise that will allow
continued operation of the Navy shipboard earth stations.

http://computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,82815,00.html?nlid=PM

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