Let extended Ku-band be used for satellite TV: Telesat and Ciel

Telesat Canada and Ciel Satellite Group plan to tell Industry Canada that it should allow the extended Ku-band to be used for direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV services. Telesat's VP of North American sales Paul Bush tells Report on Wireless the extended Ku-band is ideally suited for DTH because it's right next door to the Ku-band. The two companies are both expected to file formal comments with the department next month. Telesat already provides services telecommunications services in extended Ku-band at the 107.3 degrees west orbital slot and recently received approval for the 111.1 position. If granted, Telesat would move quickly to get a bird in the sky to support additional capacity requirements for the Star Choice Communications satellite TV system. "Through the expansion of DTH in Canada for Star Choice as well as the expansion for distribution to cable, extended Ku-band is here and now, and we're prepared to move forward with the build of a satellite that would augment the Star Choice system today," says Bush. Scott Gibson, VP and general counsel for Ciel, supports the use of the extended Ku-band for DTH purposes. "It's certainly, we think, a more efficient use of the spectrum rather than the very minor terrestrial uses that it's being put to at the moment," he says. Industry Canada launched a consultation in December into the possible use of extended Ku-band spectrum (10.95-11.2 GHz and 11.45-11.7 GHz) for DTH. The call notes that under current spectrum usage rules, DTH is not allowed in this band and therefore would have to alter its policy to allow it. This band is currently used to provide backhaul for wireless providers. The department also noted that it has imposed a moratorium on licensing this band while it conducts the consultation. It wouldn't be difficult to make current small dishes capable of receiving signals from the new band, according to Bush, characterizing the technical adjustments as minor. But the department would have come up with a plan to allow for both the terrestrial and satellite services to co-exist. Bush says Telesat plans to file "in fairly extensive detail" how the band could be segmented in a manner that would enable both terrestrial and satellite services could share the band. "We're going to take a very pragmatic look at it in terms of how we share within the terrestrial system that's there today," he adds, noting that there are more than 900,000 satellite receive sites to which Star Choice provides service compared to the hundreds of terrestrial transmitter sites. "I'm not saying it's something we don't have to deal with, we have to be cognizant that they're out there, but in terms of the magnitude of the problem we're basically at a point where we need to expand in terms of Ku-band and the numbers that we actually have to coordinate with on the ground are relatively small," Bush says.

Let extended Ku-band be used for satellite TV: Telesat and Ciel

News | February 6, 2009

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