Satellite Users Meet
on Interference Reduction

ISRO cohosted the Annual Meeting of Satellite Users Interference Reduction Group (SUIRG)
held in Bangalore during September 19-22, 2005. Experts from about 40 satellite operators including those from Intelsat, PanAmSat, NSS, SES Global, EUTELSAT, INMARSAT, AsiaSat, Arabsat, SatMex of Mexico, NahuelSat of Argentina, Star One of Brazil, CSS of Japan, Thuraya,
Singapore Telecom, besides INSAT, participated in the three-day meet. Experts from industries
that develop equipments and technologies for interference detection and analysis, also
participated in the SUIRG meeting which was inaugurated by Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO on September 20, 2005.

Formal inauguration: Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO inaugurating the Annual Meeting of SUIRG by lighting the traditional lamp

Today, there are about 220 commercial communication satellites in orbit delivering a range of services including international and intercontinental telecommunications, TV broadcasting and distribution, Direct-To-Home TV, VSAT networks and broadband data communications. According to market research conducted by Northern Sky Research of UK, there are 6700 equivalent 36 MHz bandwidth transponders in C-band and Ku-band frequencies. Of these about 4,100 transponders available are leased to various service providers and approximately 60 percent of the leased satellite bandwidth and transponders are used for TV services in different regions of the world.

The major commercial satellite transponder providers include Intelsat, PanAmSat, NewSkies Satellites, SES-Americom and EUTELSAT, who operate their satellites globally. In addition,
there are a number of regional satellite operators providing services either within a country or within a region. It may be noted that ISRO’s Indian National Satellite (INSAT) is a strong domestic satellite system in the Asia Pacific region with eight communication and meteorological satellites in operation located in five geostationary orbital slots. With 150 communication transponders and three sets of meteorological payloads, INSAT provides a number of services for Indian users.

ISRO plans to increase its operational satellites and on orbit capacity in the next few years to meet the increasing domestic demands of India and surrounding regions.

Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO, (second from left), and other dignitaries during the inaugural session

ISRO plans to increase its operational satellites and on orbit capacity in the next few years to meet the increasing domestic demands of India and surrounding regions.

Satellite Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) ranks today as one of the leading challenges of the satellite industry. The International Telecommunication Union worked out a number of technical recommendations to analyse and mitigate satellite interference issues in the
last four decades. However, satellite interference problems have been on the increase in the last decade. As a result, it has become critical to appropriately characterise the extent of interference problem, understand its causes and identify practical solutions that would assist satellite operators and users in minimising its occurrences.

Experts from leading global and regional Satellite Operators formed an informal professional group twelve years ago to address interference issues and its effects on efficient utilisation of on orbit bandwidth capacity. Subsequently incorporated in 2003 as the Satellite Users Interference Reduction Group (SUIRG), members meet annually to share experiences of interference incidents and their analysis techniques in solving the interference problems. At its previous Annual Meetings (Singapore 2002, Bariloche, Argentina 2003 and Florida, USA 2004), SUIRG
established working groups to address interference source locator capabilities, databases, training and certification, tools and regulatory matters.

The group also has cooperative working agreements with other industry and professional forums such as the World Broadcasting Union/International Satellite Operators Group (WBU/ISOG), World Teleport Association (WTA), Global VSAT Forum (GVF), Communications and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) and the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC).

The Bangalore meeting was important to review the working of different groups and share
the experiences of experts to overcome interference problems.