Technical Considerations Affecting Satellite Communications Spectrum Management

International and national management of the radio frequency spectrum had its inception at the turn of this century and has grown to be an exceedingly, complex function, inextricably bound to governmental policy and regulation. Geopolitical, legal and economic factors, as well as technical factors influence the development of radio regulations. The technical factors fundamentally stem from mutual interference considerations which impose certain constraints on users of the radio frequency spectrum. Since the early sixties, tbe rapid increase in spectrum use by space telecommunications services bag significantly increased the mutual interference problems extant among space services and between space and terrestrial services. Since the geostationary orbit is highly desirable for many space services, the utilization of this resource has become an international concern, and will be a dominant subject in the deliberation of the forthcoming World Administrative Radio conference.