Really Rocket Science

Governments have jammed satellite reception for years, most recently in Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, et. al. Broadcasters have been complaining for years, but now they’ve the got power of the ITU behind them.

At the WRC-12, the ITU membership voted in favor of government to take “necessary actions” when satellite broadcasts are jammed. The European Broadcast Union, along with media freedom-fighters, human rights advocates and broadcasters such as the BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale, RFE/RL, Inc.’s Radio Farda. Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW), and Voice of America.

Naturally, the EBU was jumping for joy yesterday:

The change, adopted by 165 member states of the WRC (out of 193 ITU members), was to article 15.21 of the regulations, which now reads, “If an administration has information of an infringement of the Constitution, the Convention or the Radio Regulations (in particular Article 45 of the Constitution and No. 15.1 of the Radio Regulations) committed by a station under its jurisdiction, the administration shall ascertain the facts and take the necessary actions.”

Ingrid Deltenre, Director General of EBU said, “From the EBU’s point of view, this decision taken by so many countries participating in WRC-12 is a first important step in the right direction. Now we expect ITU services to be vigilant and ready to react to deliberate attempts to obstruct the free flow of information.”

What “necessary actions” might be remains to be seen.

The Iranian delegation has a point: the ITU system of satellite registry could use some revision.

The point was made at WRC-12 in Geneva last week. The bottom line is satellite operators do need to trust each other…

Arasteh said the issue of trust among nations using satellite frequencies is indispensable to the smooth development of satellite telecommunications, whose importance can be measured by the number of nations — even among the least developed — that have launched their own satellites in recent years.

“This trust has been eroded in recent years because of the excessive competition in the use of satellites and the consequent warehousing of slots,” he said. “What we are saying is that we should go much beyond the procedural approach we have taken up to now.”

However, with so much money at stake, the “trust” among operators loses out to “competition.”