Summary

  • RCC states want filings from different administrations for one satellite or NGSO system to carry a common identifier and the name of one responsible administration.
  • Their draft asks the Radiocommunication Bureau to examine existing cross-border filings and publish that name in the BR IFIC.

A satellite can have one operator, several frequency filings and more than one government standing at the ITU counter. When interference demands an answer, a stack of national forms is a poor substitute for a name. RCC member states filed their Russian-language addendum 28 in ITU contribution 94, posted on 23 October for the November Plenipotentiary Conference. Its first operative clause calls for one responsible administration for a satellite network or system whose frequency assignments were submitted by different administrations. The question is concrete: who has the file when several states hold a piece of it?

The second operative clause supplies the small-looking device: a unique identifier tying those filings to the same satellite or non-geostationary system. Alongside it would sit the responsible administration's name. The sponsors point to international consortia, ownership transfers and operator mergers: a filing trail can outlive the business arrangement that produced it. They ask the participating administrations to agree which one is responsible for operation and to update that designation when it changes.

The proposal reaches into the existing record, too. It instructs the Radiocommunication Bureau director, with administrations' help, to analyse assignments from different administrations relating to one system and publish the responsible administration in the BR IFIC. Administrations would also help keep the Master International Frequency Register current by notifying the Bureau of unused or duplicated assignments. The BR IFIC already carries space-service frequency particulars on a fortnightly cycle; the requested name would ride an established publication channel.

Article 6 of the ITU Constitution already binds Member States to make authorised operators observe the Union's instruments. The fresh question is operational visibility across several state files. A single name in the circular gives a coordinator a place to begin when the same spacecraft has left a paper trail at multiple national desks. The Doha conference will decide whether that name and identifier become part of the rulebook.

Official documents