Compared with North America, satellite communications in Europe are still in their infancy, stifled, some argue, by telecommunications operators with a vested interest in keeping communications firmly on the ground and under their control. But the European satellite picture is slowly beginning to change, and just as the telecommunications monopolies have started to loosen their grip on the terrestial market, so the satellite sector could soon begin to follow suit. The start of the process was signalled last November, when the European Commission proposed a break up of the public telecommunications operators’ stranglehold over the market. In a Green Paper on satellite services, telecommunications commissioner Filippo Maria Pandolfi proposed deregulation and standardisation of the sector, to make it easier for companies other than the public telecommunications operators to set up data and audio-visual business communication networks.
Space Agency
The four main proposals are full liberalisation of the earth segment; unrestricted access to the space segment capacity; direct sale of satellite transmission capacity to both end-users and service providers from satellite providers (particularly EutelSat); and the adoption of harmonisation measures such as frequency co-ordination, to facilitate the provision of services. The European Space Agency has argued for some time for this kind of deregulation of the satellite market. The Agency’s John Chaplin described the Green Paper as a picture of a promised land – and the question he posed, was do we want to go there? Chaplin was speaking at a one-day IBC conference held in London last month, entitled Liberalisation of European Communications. He and the Space Agency believe that satellite systems can perform a useful if not unique role in opening up European communications, and that in view of the Single Market and recent developments in Eastern Europe, the technology is actually essential to the continent’s future. The problem at the moment, according to Chaplin, is that we have not yet learned to use this technology because of the restrictive regulatory framework. He believes that the present regulations must be got rid of if satellite technology is to have a chance of making an impact in European business. One of the worst aspects of the regulations is the power of the European public telephone operators to maintain a quasi-regulatory role in the sector because of their control over access to the space segment capacity. This means that satellite service providers have to go via the telecommunications operators to gain access to transponder capacity, even though often the operators may be running a competing service.
By Sonya McGilchrist
For example, service provider British Aerospace Communications Ltd has to apply to British Telecommunications Plc to lease transponder capacity on Eutelsat, of which Telecom is a signatory. Telecom charges the British Aerospace Plc subsidiary a 7.5% handling charge and at the same time is offering a competing satellite service. In an attempt to circumvent the regulations, Aerospace Communications recently won a licence to lease transponders on the Copernicus satellite, which is wholly owned by the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom. But adoption of the Green Paper’s proposals on unrestricted access to the space segment and direct sale of satellite transmission capability would mean that service providers could deal directly with satellite providers such as EutelSat. Of course, apart from offering competing satellite services, the telecommunications operators have their terrestial communication interests to think about. Chaplin describes the public telephone operators’ controlling role as like railway companies regulating the roads. And this involvement, he believes, has led the disproportionate rise in satellite tariffs. Despite benefitting from the same sort of technological progress as terrestial communications, prices have not stabilised in the same way that telephone service prices have. But why the public telephone operators’ should f
eel so threatened by satellite technology is not clear. Estimates of the revenue gained from European satellite telecommunications vary, but is probably not more than 2% of the overall revenue gained from European telecommunications. Even the Space Agency, so vigorous in its defence of liberalisation, is not suggesting that telecommunications satellite links be allowed to be set up by rival companies.
Trucking
But the Agency has set up several prototypes for satellite applications, on its Olympus satellite. The Space Agency says the applications make full use of satellite technology in the fields of telecommunications proper, rather than broadcasting. The areas they cover are video conferencing, computer communications, electronic mail, tele-education, data dissemination and high speed facsimile. One of the prototypes, Prodat is designed for land mobile services using terminal equipment that is light enough and small enough to be installed in vehicles. Chaplin reckons that land mobile communications, for applications such as keeping track of vehicles for the trucking industry is the most exciting area of satellite communications. The Prodat system provides two-way digital transmission at a low rate of transmission – 200 bits per second – between vehicles fitted with simple terminals and a central hub station. The system is similar in concept to the Inmarsat M land mobile services being worked on by British Telecom. But although public telephone operators such as British Telecom are pushing ahead with the technological capabilities of satellite, the Space Agency maintains that for users to get the most out of the technology they will have to take up the issue themselves. The way forward, says Chaplin, is for a single telecommunications market in Europe to be created and for that to happen, active and effective user groups must be created.
