Efforts to curb radio jamming to safeguard global communications

Geneva, 15 June 2016: A two-day International Satellite Communication Symposium was held at ITU in Geneva, 13 - 14 June 2016. This followed the first ITU international workshop on preventing harmful interference to satellite systems held in Geneva in June 2013. More than 140 participants, including satellite operators and regulators, broadcasters, scientists and experts from the satellite industry attended the symposium to interact, share experience and discuss the effectiveness of existing and promising measures to combat satellite interference.

“Harmful interference, including malign, intentional interference involving satellite communications in particular is detrimental to the concept of an open information society,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “Numerous solutions exist – both regulatory and technical – to remedy this issue. ITU is committed to enhance and strengthen international cooperation amongst ITU Member States, the satellite communications industry, the user community, as well as academia to develop innovative approaches in order to ensure that ITU procedures related to avoiding radio jamming are respected and applied by all countries at all times.”

Discussions centred on the current situation regarding satellite services, content delivery and interference as well as on innovative technologies developed by the industry to detect, identify, locate and mitigate harmful interference. Participants also focused on new challenges in space monitoring, sharing spectrum and issues concerning interference with the advent of a new generation of satellites, including CubeSats, large non-geostationary constellations, radionavigation-satellite and space sciences satellite systems.

“ITU’s work focuses on ensuring a stable regulatory and operational framework for the sustainable development of all radiocommunication services, in particular by managing spectrum and orbit resources so that these resources can be used without risk of harmful interference,” said François Rancy, Director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau in his opening address. “This is what permits billions of dollars of new investments to be made every year by the satellite industry, which contributes enormously towards shaping the information society.”