UK considerations concerning IFRB Advance Publication of Asia Pacific Satellites
Summary of Conclusions
The Pacific Rim is a fast growing part of the world which is poorly supplied with appropriate telecommunications satellite facilities. Asia Pacific Space and Communications Ltd. (APSC) has been formed in the USA to supply such facilities as a co-operative venture, avoiding domination by any one country.
The British Government is being invited to support an Application to the IFRB (part of the ITU, itself a specialised agency of the UN) for Advance Publication of the necessary satellite orbits and frequencies. Group applications have hitherto been used only for Intelsat and similar PTT systems, but the legal position is that the process is not exclusive to such organisations' needs. The Application is given as Appendix 4 to this paper.
APSC believes that UK's inclusion in the group of countries making the application (USA on behalf of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and Canada) will help to underline the co- operative nature of the project and will draw on the goodwill present in the Pacific region towards the UK. British Aerospace has been involved with APSC in the design of the satellite system and are in a strong position to compete for the supply contract for the communications satellites which will be worth in excess of £100m.
There are no conflicts with other satellite systems with which the UK is associated and therefore no difficulties are expected with preserving the interests of British Commonwealth and dependent territories in the Pacific region.
Asia-Pacific System
During the 1980s the Pacific Rim region, which may be described approximately as the area from Western Samoa to Rangoon and from Seoul to Melbourne, emerged as the ocean region of the world with the highest trade volume. It is also the area which had the most rapid overall growth in the 1980s and early 1990s and where the major financial and business centres of Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo have flourished. Even during the world recession the area is managing to preserve its activity and infrastructure and is expected to move forward again rapidly when more favourable trading conditions re-occur.
However, throughout the period, there has been a lack of provision of regional communications systems tailored to the economic and political realities of the area. In particular, the area is not well served with communications satellites, apart from the recently launched Hong Kong based AsiaSat television broadcast system. The success of this broadcast system has shown the positive potential for satellite communications in the area but the equivalent, Pacific-based, telecommunication facility is not yet available.
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APSC