Satellite broadcasting as trade routes in the sky

Public Culture

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 69-85

  Price, Monroe E ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040213298     PISSN: 08992363     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/08992363-11-2-387     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. See Eugene Volokh, "Cheap Speech and What It Will Do," Yale Law Journal 104 (1995): 1805.
2. See Eugene Van Cleef, Trade Centers and Trade Routes (New York: Appleton-Century, 1937): James Francis Horrabin. The Opening-Up of the World (London: Methuen, 1936): Halford Hoskins, British Routes to India (New York: Longmans, Green, 1928); and Maria Wilhelmina Jurriaanse, Catalogue of the Archives of the Dutch Central Government of Coastal Ceylon, 1640-1796 (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1943).
3. See Eugene Van Cleef, Trade Centers and Trade Routes (New York: Appleton-Century, 1937): James Francis Horrabin. The Opening-Up of the World (London: Methuen, 1936): Halford Hoskins, British Routes to India (New York: Longmans, Green, 1928); and Maria Wilhelmina Jurriaanse, Catalogue of the Archives of the Dutch Central Government of Coastal Ceylon, 1640-1796 (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1943).
4. See Eugene Van Cleef, Trade Centers and Trade Routes (New York: Appleton-Century, 1937): James Francis Horrabin. The Opening-Up of the World (London: Methuen, 1936): Halford Hoskins, British Routes to India (New York: Longmans, Green, 1928); and Maria Wilhelmina Jurriaanse, Catalogue of the Archives of the Dutch Central Government of Coastal Ceylon, 1640-1796 (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1943).
5. See Eugene Van Cleef, Trade Centers and Trade Routes (New York: Appleton-Century, 1937): James Francis Horrabin. The Opening-Up of the World (London: Methuen, 1936): Halford Hoskins, British Routes to India (New York: Longmans, Green, 1928); and Maria Wilhelmina Jurriaanse, Catalogue of the Archives of the Dutch Central Government of Coastal Ceylon, 1640-1796 (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1943).
6. See Michael J. Finch, "Limited Space: Allocating the Geostationary Orbit," New Journal of International law and Business 7 (1986): 788.
7. The focus of this essay is on geostationary satellites, which have been virtually the only kind of satellites operating commercially. The next few years, however, will see the commencement of commercial operations via low earth orbit (LEO) satellites. For these satellites, the concept of orbital slots is entirely meaningless, but the concept of orbital planes may nonetheless keep the trade route metaphor relevant. The orbital paths taken by LEO constellations are not randomly selected but intended to traverse the major population zones of the world. In addition, the satellites themselves carry steerable antennas, which enable them to focus on populated areas.
8. See Jonathan I. Ezor, "Costs Overhead: Tonga's Claiming of Sixteen Geostationary Orbital Sites and the Implications for U.S. Space Policy," Law and Policy in International Business 24 (1993): 915-16.
9. See Jannat C. Thompson, "Space for Rent: The International Telecommunications Union, Space Law, and Orbit/Spectrum Leasing," Journal of Air Law and Commerce 62 (1996): 279-88; and Martin L. Stern, "Communications Satellites and the Geostationary Orbit: Reconciling Equitable Access with Efficient Use," Law and Policy in International Business 14 (1982): 859-64. Established in 1865, the ITU (originally the International Telegraphic Union) has recently sought to encourage cooperation among its member countries, to improve global telecommunications, and to provide technical assistance to developing countries. Its Radio Conferences, held every second year, decide the allocation of orbital space to member countries.
10. See Jannat C. Thompson, "Space for Rent: The International Telecommunications Union, Space Law, and Orbit/Spectrum Leasing," Journal of Air Law and Commerce 62 (1996): 279-88; and Martin L. Stern, "Communications Satellites and the Geostationary Orbit: Reconciling Equitable Access with Efficient Use," Law and Policy in International Business 14 (1982): 859-64. Established in 1865, the ITU (originally the International Telegraphic Union) has recently sought to encourage cooperation among its member countries, to improve global telecommunications, and to provide technical assistance to developing countries. Its Radio Conferences, held every second year, decide the allocation of orbital space to member countries.
11. See Stephen Gorove, Developments in Space Law: Issues and Policies (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1991).
12. The ITU structure that exists for registration of orbital slots grew out of a telecommunications environment in which each country (including the United States at the outset) had a single monopoly carrier for virtually all telecommunications traffic. Intelsat was created by agreement of these carriers as a cooperative intended to establish satellite links among the monopolies, in much the same way that these "club" members had created undersea cable links among themselves. The theory was that each country, typically through its government-owned monopoly, would control the domestic orbital slots over its own region, while Intelsat would control the international slots. The ITU orbital slot registration process made more sense when a telecommunications monopoly model existed than when a more open, competitive approach evolved. See Milton L. Smith, International Regulation of Satellite Communications (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1990).
13. See Robert Keith-Reid, "Tonga Pushes for Pacific-Owned Communications Network," AP Newsfeed, 11 March 1998 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File).
14. "Tongasat Set to Lead Asian Satellite Consortium," Communications Today, 19 January 1998 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File).
15. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the owner of the largest U.S. Spanish-language television network, Anselmo was seeking to import Spanish-language programming from Latin America. Because the transmission of this programming would be international, the Federal Communications Commission required Anselmo's network to use Intelsat for the transmissions, even though U.S. domestic satellites were technically capable of carrying the traffic and would have done so at rates that were, at most, 50 percent lower than Intelsat's. Although the U.S. government eventually allowed some transborder communications via U.S. domestic satellites, Anselmo had by that time become so enraged that he had decided to compete directly with Intelsat in the provision of international satellite services.
16. "PanAmSat Lobbies FCC for Greater Freedom," FinTech Telecom Markets, 26 July 1990 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File).
17. There is an important relationship (illustrative of the legal creation of sites) between Anselmo's PanAmSat and the legal adventurousness of Tongasat. The issue of orbital slots first arose when Anselmo and others in the early to mid-1980s filed at the FCC for what were then called "separate system" licenses (because they were separate from the Intelsat system). If it was indeed possible to compete directly with Intelsat, then orbital slots over the oceans - which theretofore had been of interest solely to Intelsat - were suddenly of great potential value. Tongasat, led at that time by an American entrepreneur, was one of the first to recognize this potential and to recognize that the ITU's procedures essentially allowed any nation, no matter how small, to file for large numbers of these valuable slots.
18. Eutelsat had intended to launch a third satellite into the same 28-29 degree space by the year 2000, violating a sometimes contested norm that satellites be positioned at least three degrees apart. However, on 15 July 1998, SES won the latest round before the ITU's Radio Regulation Board. See "Eutelsat Promotes 29 Degrees Last Slot," Cable and Satellite Express, 26 March 1998, 9 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File), and "Hostilities Resumed in SES-Eutelsat Star Wars," Cable and Satellite Europe, April 1998 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File).
19. Eutelsat had intended to launch a third satellite into the same 28-29 degree space by the year 2000, violating a sometimes contested norm that satellites be positioned at least three degrees apart. However, on 15 July 1998, SES won the latest round before the ITU's Radio Regulation Board. See "Eutelsat Promotes 29 Degrees Last Slot," Cable and Satellite Express, 26 March 1998, 9 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File), and "Hostilities Resumed in SES-Eutelsat Star Wars," Cable and Satellite Europe, April 1998 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File).
20. "Alfa TV A Multilingual Satellite TV for Europe and FSU," BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 16 January 1998 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File).
21. See Regina v. Secretary of State for the National Heritage ex parte Continental Television BV. 30 April 1998: [1993] CMI R 387 (dismissing an appeal from a denial of injunction to prevent the United Kingdom from banning reception, viewing, and advertising of the pornographic channel. Red Hot television, emanating from Denmark).
22. Amir Hassanpour, "MED TV, Britain, and the Turkish State: A Stateless Nation's Quest for Sovereignty in the Sky" (paper presented at Freic Universität Berlin, 7 November 1995, available on the MED TV Website. http://www.med.tv.be/med/).
23. This history is recounted in Monroe E. Price, "What Price Fairness?" Media Studies Journal (Spring/Summer 1998): 82.
24. (Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran), "Emami-Kashani: West Interested in Transfer Not of Technology but of Corruption," BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 19 September 1994 (LEXIS 〈 World Library, ALLWLD File).
25. "Draft Convention on Principles Governing the Use by States of Artificial Earth Satellites for Direct Television Broadcasting," U.N. Doc. A/8771 (1972), art IV.
26. See Herbert I. Schiller, Communication and Cultural Domination (White Plains, N.Y.: International Arts and Sciences Press, 1976).
27. For a discussion of human rights and the Indian Broadcasting Bill, see Mark Templeton, "A Human Rights Perspective in the Broadcasting Bill Debate," in Monroe E. Price and Stefaan G. Verhulst, eds., Broadcasting Reform in India: A Case Study in the Uses of Comparative Media Law (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 53-72.
28. "International Convention Concerning the Use of Broadcasting in the Cause of Peace," 23 September 1936, Art. I, 186 L.N.T.S. 301.
29. The tendency of some countries to require uplinking within their boundaries is an example of what Saskia Sassen has called reinstalling the local; see Saskia Sassen, Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization (New York: Columbia University press, 1996).