Andy Fry Director, Regulatory Affairs Infostellar “What technical, standardisation and legislative issues stand in the way of having satellites "roaming" with respect to ground segment, just like it seamlessly occurs with mobile phones?” Andy Fry Director, Regulatory Affairs Infostellar

Started in Tokyo, landed in Goonhilly www.infostellar.net/news/sa-catapult-infostellar

What do we mean by International Mobile Roaming? International mobile roaming is a service that allows mobile users to continue to use their mobile phone (or other mobile devices) whilst visiting another country. Roaming extends the coverage of the home operator’s retail services, allowing the mobile user to continue using their home operator’s phone number and data services within another country. This (near) seamless extension of coverage is enabled by wholesale roaming agreements between a mobile user’s home operator and the visited mobile operator’s network. The roaming agreement addresses the technical and commercial components required to enable the service.

Mobile Services were designed to operate internationally right from the beginning: A short history of the first 10 years of GSM . . . . . 1982 - The Groupe Speciale Mobile (GSM) formed by the Confederation of European Posts and Telecommunications (CEPT) to design a pan-European mobile technology. 1985 - ‘GAP’ meetings took place that led to the European Commission’s endorsement of the GSM project. 1986 - EU Heads of State endorse the GSM project. The EC initiative proposed to reserve the 900MHz spectrum band for GSM, agreed in the EC Telecommunications Council. Quadripartite agreement between France, Germany, Italy and the UK cooperation agreement signed (to support the standards work and exchange research data). Trials of different digital radio transmission schemes and different speech codecs in several countries, with comparative evaluation by CEPT GSM.. 1987 - Basic parameters of the GSM standard agreed. Proposal agreed by ministers from the quadripartite countries to create an “Operator Agreement” in the form of a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’. The ‘MoU’ was drawn up and signed by 13 countries that committed to deploying GSM. 1988 - Completion of first set of detailed GSM specifications for infrastructure tendering purposes. Simultaneous issue of invitation to tender for networks by ten GSM network operators – all subsequently signed in the same year. 1989 - Groupe Speciale Mobile (transferred to an ETSI technical committee) defines the GSM standard as the internationally accepted digital cellular telephony standard. The UK’s Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) produced a document ‘Phones on the Move’ that first proposed PCN (Personal Communications Networks (later known as DCS 1800 and subsequently GSM 1800) networks to operate in the 1800 MHz frequency band. 1990 - GSM adaptation work started for the DCS1800 band. 1991 - First GSM call made by Radiolinja in Finland. 1992 - First international roaming agreement signed between Telecom Finland and Vodafone UK.. First SMS sent. Source: https://www.gsma.com/aboutus/history

There remains an international appetite for Global IMT services: The ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) develops and adopts the international regulations on the use of the radiofrequency spectrum, the Radio Regulations (RR) - an international treaty that is binding on the 193 Member States of the ITU. These RR are the basis for the harmonization of spectrum worldwide - including for IMT. The ITU-R develops and adopts the global standards for the overall requirements of IMT and for its radio interface (ITU-R Recommendations), as well as best practices in the implementation of these standards and regulations (ITU-R Reports and Handbooks). The ITU Telecommunications Sector (ITU-T) develop and adopts global standards for the IMT network. (ITU-T Recommendations). These developments take place through extensive studies and discussions involving all stakeholders from governments, regulators, industry and academia, which are conducted by the ITU-R Study Groups and ITU-T Study Groups in their respective fields. Through this work the ITU has been leading international efforts to enable mobile broadband communications (3G, 4G and now 5G). Source: itu.int/en/ITU-R/Documents/ITU-R-FAQ-IMT.pdf

compatibility of services within IMT and with fixed networks; The ITU continues to ensure that IMT standards are designed to operate globally The ITU sets out that the key features of future IMT system standards that should include: a high degree of commonality of functionality worldwide, whilst retaining the flexibility to support a wide range of services and applications in a cost efficient manner; compatibility of services within IMT and with fixed networks; capability of interworking with other radio access systems; high quality mobile services; user equipment suitable for worldwide use; user-friendly applications, services and equipment; worldwide roaming capability; and enhanced peak data rates to support advanced services and applications. Source: itu.int/en/ITU-R/Documents/ITU-R-FAQ-IMT.pdf

Barriers - Commercial Drivers & Market Forces The biggest barrier of all to the international roaming of satellites compared to mobile devices is the difference between the size of the IMT and Satellite markets. In 2019 the number of mobile phone users globally is forecast to reach 4.68 billion. In 2016, an estimated 62.9 percent of the population worldwide already owned a mobile phone and mobile phone penetration is forecasted to continue to grow, rounding up to 67 percent in 2019. Of this a growing number of users are using smart devices, for example a survey across a 18 advanced economies reported that 76% of users have smartphones with some 45% of users in emerging economies. Whilst the NewSpace Index (https://www.newspace.im/) lists just 102 - New Space NGSO Satellite Constellations operators (ranging from operators with single satellite to the “mega” constellations operators) with known launch programmes upto 2022 and a further 22 operators with as yet unknown schedules. Sources: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-of-mobile-phone-users-worldwide/ & https://www.statista.com/statistics/470018/mobile-phone-user-penetration-worldwide/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/05/smartphone-ownership-is-growing-rapidly-around-the-world-but-not-always-equally/

Barriers - Technical, Standardisation and Legislative Interoperability - would need to be able to operate over a wide range of technologies with a number of frequency bands, protocols, interfaces, and ground network elements. Protection of GSOs and other space users Security - a concern could this roaming allow an unathorised entity access data or take control of a satelitte Standardisation: Lack of standard licensing processes - even in the European Single Market Legislative: Frequency assignments and allocations, co-ordination etc

So if not roaming, what can be done to make life easier for satellite operators? Simplified and unified licencing processes to make it easier for new space satellite operators to licence their Satellite Earth Stations. There is no common process even in the European Single Market - with application processes ranging from a single page application in Portugal, through several pages (plus technical annexes) in thee UK to a weighty volume that requires detailed engineering information in France.

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andy@istellar.com