A UN agency that works for US space
If United States policymakers deride the wider United Nations, they still spend on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) because it amplifies the commercial reach of U.S. standards. This includes U.S. radiofrequency standards, for which the ITU creates a quadrennial forum that parses how countries can use frequencies into the future. It's a consequential event with a lot of money on the table, and requires careful attention from the U.S. government in order to properly support the space-enabled future it is trying to create.
That negotiation, called the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), will be thorny. Geopolitics aside, tensions between old tech and new - incumbents and innovators - are at odds about how to modernize rules for divvying radio frequency spectrum. Of particular interest is figuring out how geostationary (GSO) satellites should better share radio frequencies with the non-geostationary broadband networks (NGSOs) that fulfil a long-standing U.S. promise of space-based infrastructure to underpin digital economies everywhere. This modernization needn't come at the expense of coexistence - spectrum sharing will be critical to preserving innovation, competition and long-term orbital resilience - but the U.S. leads the world in deploying NGSOs which makes increasing their access to spectrum a national priority while still bringing 194 countries along with them. Here are three tried-and-tested rules the U.S. delegation can follow to achieve that by the end of this febrile treaty negotiation.
First, champion a message of innovation. Technical innovation is key to economic growth and development, and regulatory innovation has to back it up. Yes, trust in technology requires deliberation, but the demerits of old rules governing GSOs have been the subject of lots of deliberation by the international community. Meanwhile, NGSOs provide the coverage, competition, flexibility, affordability and security that countries have been waiting for since Early Bird (Intelsat I, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit, launched on April 6, 1965). Now they need to innovate with regulation at the WRC to get it.
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Second, lead with science. The U.S. is right to be excited, even zealous, about the innovations it wants to share with the world, NGSOs included. The U.S. has done well at the ITU in allowing the enthusiasm of its scientists and engineers to communicate the benefits of U.S. tech in that unfussy, evidence-based way that only the best minds and high purpose combine to achieve. This should continue: It'll hit the mark with countries that need convincing.
Third, ensure team discipline. To harness the space industry's help in scaling international outreach, the U.S. government traditionally sets a clear negotiating envelope. It's a time-tested model, and the U.S. trusts its industry to follow the brief. But where companies look to circumvent that envelope, for example, by working through other countries to act against the American position, the U.S. should apply the same discipline used with firms that violate American policy in other domains.
Even if U.S. space innovations can tell their own story, persuading the ITU's Member States to change is at risk of getting wrapped up in politics, inertia and anti-competitive behavior. With careful messaging, self-belief and strong delegation management, treaty language that modernizes equivalent power flux density rules will come together so American space-based broadband networks are able to give their best towards a connected future, from which the commercial benefits to the U.S. and its international partners surely follow.
Greg Francis is vice chair of Access Partnership and a former chief-of-staff to U.S. WRC ambassadors.
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