IETE Apex Forum

“Exploitation of Ku-band” was the topic of the Apex Forum held on March 12, 2004 at IETE Delton Hall, the first forum of the year. 12.4 to 18 GHz band of microwave frequencies is designated as Ku-band as per International Convention. The opening up of Ku-band has facilitated growth of satellite based communication & broadcasting services, VSAT Industry, Distance Education Programme, DTH Broadcasting, and Data services.
The forum started with a welcome address by Lt Gen (Retd) D P Sehgal, PVSM, AVSM, VSM, Chairman, Industrial Coordination Committee. He congratulated IETE for its good educational work in the field of information and communication technology, which has been recognized by the various industries and institutions. He mentioned the impact of Ku Band on different areas. The background paper on the subject was introduced by the Convenor of the Apex Forum, Shri P N Chopra, DIG, BSF (Retd). He narrated the genesis of satellite based services including existing usage of - C band , Ku band and many more features of Ku band which could be exploited in the near future.

The distinguished panelists included Shri R N Agarwal, Ex-Wireless Advisor, Shri P K Garg, Wireless Adviser, Shri R N Wadhwa, Space Application Centre, Delhi Earth Station, Shri Ashok Golas, Principle, General Manager, BSNL, Meerut Circle, Shri A S Guin, Chief Engineer, AIR, Dr Rakesh Mehrotra, Vice President, ASC Enterprises Ltd, Wg Cdr B G Bhalla, Secy General, VSAT Service Providers Association. and Col Joneja, SO1, Army HQs.
Speakers brought out that lack of regulatory infrastructure in the country and bad experience of cultural invasion with direct to home TV of ‘C’ band and extended ‘C’ band delayed the induction of Ku band usage in the country. However, now with opening up of the Ku-band by the government, creative atmosphere has been enhanced in the country. The Ku-band becomes all the more important because of its high portability and small size antenna. The Ku-band based VSAT installations are highly flexible systems. They can be moved out and installed in short time even in rural and remote areas. Access to broadband Internet on Ku-band would take the speed to megabits and finally result in lowering the cost of satellite communications.

Use of Ku-band for education was emphasized. Speakers talked about the Ku-band transponders in various INSAT series satellites and listed the objectives and configuration of EDUSAT. Web browsing and video conferencing would be possible through Ku band satellites. Secretary General, VSAT Services Association of India drew the attention towards the explosive development of VSAT industry in the private sector. He emphasized on fair competition in respect access to any satellite be it Indian or foreign and SACFA clearance for low mast height of VSAT antenna for the benefit of both the users, and the VSAT service provider vis-à-vis Doordarshan, ISRO, Internet operators. It was proposed that if SACFA clearance is abolished for Ku band receiving antenna dishes specially in rural areas, it will help in reaching out to 70% of India’s population through VSAT services.

Ku-band has a number of advantages due to its small size antennas, large bandwidth, free from terrestrial communications interference and easy reach to inaccessible areas. The technology & infrastructure for uploading through normal terrestrial internet connection and also downloading high speed voice,data and video was available in the country. It can be utilized for providing value added services like education, tele-medicine, Internet, voice, vedio, data through broadband satellte communication on DTH, cable, LMDS etc at affordable cost. Panelists also gave evolving communication needs and technology trends of GMPCS (Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite), Gigabits Satellites and new paradigm-fibre in the sky through future optical satellites.

IETE President, Prof K K Aggarwal who presided over the function in his summing up talk said that he was happy to note that most of the speakers strongly recommended use of Ku-band satellite communications for down loading at the high speed, video, audio and data for use by rural masses at the same time they could have two-way communication by uploading through their normal terrestrial links. Prof Aggarwal said that Ku-band is going to be extremely useful to IETE in reaching out to the doorsteps of our students. He said we need broad band & high speed communication for dissemination of our course material to students population of more than 40,000 attached to our 49 centres located all over India. He said the technology like MEMS, which is compatible with Ku-band infrastructure, would be extremely useful. Prof Aggrawal also said that the technology like GMPCS would provide directly to the end users, voice, data, fax messages and even broad multimedia. He thanked the learned journalists for their valuable deliberations which invoked lot of interest from the audience.