The intergovernmental coordinating body for European state telecommunications and postal organizations has concluded that wireless devices and satellite radars cannot successfully coexist in the same part of radio spectrum, the head of the body’s technical committee announced Jan. 28.
Space News reports the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) considered research from backers of terrestrial broadband, including Cisco Systems, Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom, who voted for the idea of shared spectrum, and the European Space Agency, who voted against it, in its decision.
“This was a delicate issue,” Eric Fournier, chairman of the Electronic Communications Committee of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) said. “But we have concluded that [spectrum] sharing between Wi-Fi and radar Earth observation satellites will not work.”
Sent from several hundred kilometers in altitude in low Earth orbit, satellite transmissions are vulnerable to Wi-Fi interference when they reach the ground because their strength is severely depleted, according to the radar satellite owners.
“To prevent interference, the Radio LANS [wireless broadband devices] would need to operate at 10 times lower power levels than they are using in adjacent bands. There is no possibility of sharing, and no reliable data has been put on the table suggesting otherwise,” Fournier said.
The issue is expected to be considered at the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) in 2015. Held every four years, WRC makes the final decisions about wireless frequency and satellite spectrum use.
