Larry,
This is my guess.
Friday November 21, 4:31 am Eastern Time
Radio pact gives greenlight to satellites - ITU
(Note: this article appears to include two versions of the same article --
it is likely that only the last is of interest. The first version follows
immediatly below. If you'd like to skip ahead, here is a link down to
the second version.)
GENEVA, Nov 21 (Reuters) - A global pact has been adopted to allow radio
frequencies to be shared, meaning multi-media satellite systems like Alcatel's
Skybridge (NYSE:ALA - news; CGEP.PA) and Motorola's Celestri (NYSE:MOT
- news) may develop and compete against the Teledesic project of Microsoft
(Nasdaq:MSFT - news) chairman Bill Gates, the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU) said on Friday.
''The conference has adopted a treaty which will allow systems to continue to
develop and be deployed,'' ITU spokeswoman Francine Lambert told reporters after
the landmark pact was agreed at 142-nation talks in Geneva. ''Competition is thus
assured.''
(take 2)
The four-week meeting, called the World Radiocommunication Conference, is held
every two years to set global rules for use of scare radiocommunication frequencies.
It ends on Friday.
Under the deal, hammered out mainly by the United States and European countries,
geostationary or fixed-orbit satellites already in space must share bandwidths with
new nongeostationary systems like Skybridge and Celestri. But power limits will be
placed on the nongeostationary systems, ITU's Lambert said.
European countries led by France fought a de facto monopoly on access to bands
they said had been allocated to Teledesic, a $9 billion scheme backed by Boeing
(NYSE:BA - news), at ITU talks in 1995.
Skybridge chairwoman Pascale Sourisse told reporters she welcomed the
breakthrough. ''The innovation is we will be able to re-use frequencies used by other
systems -- it has not been done before. But the regulatory framework is now
finalised.''
Regards,
MiB |
