The Geneva, Switzerland-based International Telecommunications Union is considering establishing yet another global satellite communication network, and has instructed its 170 members to spare the 2GHz frequency band for it. Kitti Yupho, director-general of the union’s Post & Telegraph Department, said the organisation will discuss ways to use this frequency range as a pool frequency for a joint worldwide communications network at the World Radio Communications Conference in Geneva this September. This would be the first global telecommunications network project in which a common frequency has been spared in advance worldwide, said Yupho. The announcement follows previous union deliberations, during which all member countries had agreed to use this frequency range for the so-called Future Land Mobile Satellite Communication project, similar to other satellite-based global cellular telephone projects such as Inmarsat-P or Iridium. The 2GHz frequency has been chosen as its range is not fully used and could be easily recalled, said Yupho. He added that such a high frequency is capable of long-distance transmission and is therefore suitable for standard use in the proposed network. Member countries have not yet discussed in detail the project’s implementation, but have reached a consensus to spare room in this bandwidth for a joint global communications network by the year 2000. There will be no country primarily responsible for the project, but all members have apparently agreed to co-operate together if such a project is launched. The next step is for all the union’s member countries to agree to one precise common frequency for the global network, following which they will discuss the technology. Yupho acknowledged that a global joint venture might be needed to build a new satellite for the project. In preparation, the Post and Telegraph department will recall the 2GHz frequency by 1999, and will not permit further use, except for temporary purposes.
