The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> PETER MICEK: We can see you now. You are on the big screen.
All right.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Okay we have been saved. World.
If everyone is ready and I do not hear objection I'll be glad to start us off. Welcome to section 307. This time we encourage you to join us to discuss some data governance in broadband satellite services. That is the theme we've chosen for this panel. Group of managers we've managed to complete for the panel has been working on satellite connectivity and internet access for a while. We'll go through the introductions in due course.
For this specific session we have decided to focus on data. This new technologies that support internet connectivity all rely on what has been referenced as the new oil. So we are very much looking forward to discussing that specific aspect of internet connectivity. And satellite infrastructure.
My name is Joanna Kulesza. E for the past year and a half together with my lead we have been working to better understand legal framework behind low earth orbit satellites and internet connectivity and we've managed to put together a panel of excellent speakers whom I'm going to kindly ask to introduce themselves in due course for the purpose of time. Our scoping questions for this session do include both the technological aspects of lowered orbit satellites and internet connectivity. And that is kind of question first to speakers to shed some light on that specific theme.
We will then move forward to better understand what other regulatory constraints behind using technologies like SpaceX, but I'm certain our speakers will emphasise that that is by far not the only company that is offering satellite infrastructures for internet connectivity.
And then we will look at regulatory impacts that the governments are trying to cause within different jurisdictions. As well as the Civil Society feedback to the possibility of deploying this new infrastructures and regulating, managing, processing the data that flows thank you them.
I have kindly asked our panelists to present for 7‑10 minutes. As already said, we have quite a agenda.
So without further ever further ado I am going to ask them take the floor. And then we will move directly into the Q&A.
So if our audience members do have questions or comments, they are more than welcome to either post them in the chat. I will be monitoring the chat. Or simply wait until the Q&A session that will be moderated in the room by beer anyway Akcali gur..
And I am certain we will be provided with a link to that report in due course. And Dan has been working for ISOC. So Dan, thank you for joining us. The floor is yours.
>> DAN YORK: Thank you very much Joanna and thank you for everybody coming and attending this session whether in the room in Kyoto or online wherever you may be.
And this is a fascinating topic around data and I could go off on in in any topic but I've been asked to focus on the technology side and set the stage to make sure we're using the same terms and working the same kind of space and working with that.
So begin, I work for the Internet Society. Focus around one of the aspects is connecting the unconnected and how do we do that using low earth orbit satellites, among other technologies. Internet for everyone and how do we bring these people together?
To begin any conversation an satellites we need to talk about orbits. And this is the critical part to understand what is going on right now and why there is so much energy and excitement. We've had satellites that are providing internet access for decades now. Almost all of those have been out at what is called geostationary or geosynchronous orbit around 36,000 kilometres away from the earth. Large satellites. Typically size of a large bus or something bigger. They cost many millions of dollars. Tay take a long time to get out there. But provide service for 15, 20 years or more. They can provide decent bandwidth. The challenge is they are so far out that the amount of time for a packet to go from the earth to the satellite and get back can be 600 milliseconds, 800, 900, a second or even more. And the challenge that has is that in today's world when we want to have video conversations like this one, you need something with a much smaller amount of what we call latency or lag.
And this is where we start to look at the other areas. There is a medium earth orbit, which is between 2,000 and 36,000. And that is kind of a range of things that are in there. There is a provider. SES, which has the O3B satellites that do exist out in that kind of range.
They are a little bit closer. Have a little better latency. But the energy the excitement is all down in the someplace below 2,000 kilometers. Which is the low earth orbit. Leo as we say here. LEO. However you want to call it. All of this is happening in this space. Part of what goes on and why we're getting into this is how the further away you are, the more, the bigger the range of the earth that you can cover. So you can go and without it, the gee synchronous area. You can have three satellites and you can be able to cover basically the entire earth by positioning them in different areas. The.
The middle earth orbit, some systems there can do maybe 20 or so. Orbiting. Faster et cetera.
When you goat into Leo area. You need a lot of satellites. Because they are moving constantly in motion there. One web, is around 1200 kilometres away from the earth and they have about 600 satellites. SpaceX, with their star link and Amazon project kiper and others in 24 this play a about 500, 600 kilometres away. And they need about 3,000 satellites to cover it.
So it is a different scale you see here going on.
These are this world of Leos. Low earth orbit satellites that we see around here.
What's happened is driving this interest in Leos is that this need for this high speed low latency connectivity. We want to have connections like this. We want to be in gaming. We want virtual worlds. E sports. You know, fast connectivity to communicate and connect with people. And the challenge is that just hasn't worked in the past with geo. But the thing driving it is this massive reduction in costs.
These Leo satellites might be the size of a car or even smaller in some cases. They can be mass produced and rolling off production lines. They can be sent up in rockets with 50 of them at a time. And the rockets can be reusable now. As we've seen with SpaceX.
So there is this massive change in the way that we're able to go and deploy rockets and things that are out there.
Three parts to any of these systems. One is this constellation of satellites. Something we all think about when it geez up there. Each of them are launched at different altitudes. There are different what they call orbital shells that are around.
There is also the user terminal is the language used in satellite speak. The ground terminal. Or something. Normal, I mean, people, just out there often call it an antenna or a dish. That kind of thing. But that is the piece, that is the hardware that you use.
The big difference that's happened is that you need a fancier antenna.
With a geostationary satellite, you can just put an antenna on top of your house, point it at the satellite and it is done. Because the satellite is fixed over a certain part of the earth as it rotates. So you can just put the dish up there. And that is what you see all over the world.
Well that doesn't work when satellites are moving a high pace and might only be over the earth in view five or ten minutes.
So you need new antennas that are electronically steerable. Phase aid ray. Lots of words for them. But basically they are the things you see, if you have seen anything with star link. They look like a pizza box. Amazon kiper has similar ones. The companies that are selling direct to consumer often accompany that with a wifi router or something else. And then there is also ground stations. And these are the receiving end of where that signal goes up to a satellite, comes down to a ground station, connects out to the internet.
Now these are different for each provider. 1 web's ground station is different from SpaceX and different from Amazon kipers. And different from ones use by Intel sat or one of the other providers. They are all their sewn separate space in there but they need that ground station to connect to. This is something and Larry will talk more about this in a bit. But this is something that's changed a bit. Historically you needed to have a ground station in each country for legal reasons and things. But also within a certain range.
The satellite had to be able to look down and see the ground station. So you had to have them maybe every 900 kilometres. Something. You had to have them spaced out around the earth. And this is why. Because you would have this user terminal side of the dish connect up to a satellite, bounce down to a ground station and out to the internet.
Of course in Leo space it might look more like this. Some packets go to one satellite. The others would come back there.
Bun of the big changes in or revolutions in this space is what if you are not in range to a local ground station? This is what Larry is going to talk a little about is this idea around intersatellite lasers. Which low you to go and connect up to the satellite, bounce across the mesh, and then drop down to a ground station. SpaceX looked at this already, experiments in Antarctica with star link dishes there. Connected up. Went across the constellation and dropped down a ground station somewhere else.
There are no ground stations in air Antarctica. It was connecting up and across. It was also demonstrated in the Iran protests. When the U.S. government and others asked star link to turn on star link access in that country of Iran. And they did.
There aren't any legal ground stations in Iran. They were taking that data up into the satellite constellation and then dropping it down somewhere in to some other ground stations there.
There is a range of different kinds of data floe tech issues we could talk about here about where does the data get dropped down to. Who is in control of that. Lot of different topics around that that I'm not going to get into but we'll talk more about that. quickly some of the concerns or things we have to think about are affordability. Can these systems really be affordable for the people who need them the most? There is a bunch of different business models brought in here. Will they have the capacity to support all that we need?
Certainly we've seen? Some areas they provide tremendous capacity for everything you need. When you get in the more densely populated areas. Actually you wind up with having challenges in some of this.
Will there be competition? What are the business models?
Right now one of the biggest challenges is simply deployment. There are limited number of providers. Really only SpaceX right now who is able to go and launch satellites into space at the pace that you need to launch. Because you have got to get thousands of satellites up in the low earth orbit. And because they only have a five year life span you need to keep replacing.
We're in a weird spot where other launch providers. Are in between launch vehicles. Like the area on five. There is no more rockets and area on six hasn't been deployed yet. But there are other pieces like that. So we're in a weird spot. So one of the big challenges is just getting the rocket, the satellites up there in the first place.
There are other concerns. Security, privacy. Standards. What standards are being used. If you use a star link connection, it works with all the typical internet standards. Those are all open. I works across there.
How they are routing inside the infrastructure is right now primarily proprietary.
There is issues around space debris. Lots of things that come into these kind of spaces. We don't fully understand the sustainable business models. There is questions around the environmental impact of all of this. What will it be. The impact on astronomy. Lot of open questions. So that is one reason we need sessions like this at the IGF and other places like this because it is an industry still in infancy and need to understand better.
I won't put a point around the urgency around this. The next several years are going to be very critical. Because there is a lot of people launching these systems. Star link already launched much of its generation one first phase. Ultimately about 40000 satellites. And second generation been 7500 satellites growing to around 30,000 satellites.
One web has completed their first phase around 600. But they are going to be launching more. They are on the books to do that. Amazon just last week launched its first two demonstration satellites but it is on track to launch another 3200 over the next couple of years. China is proposing their own constellation to rival starlinks about 13,000 satellites. The European Union is developing its own Iris constellation.
If you look at the numbers, it is conceivable that over the next four to five years, we could have 40, 50, 60, maybe even 90,000 satellites orbiting the earth. And this is just the internet access ones. Not even thinking about imaging or sensor networks or other stuff. So it is a very crowded space up there.
Data flows are going to be a big part of thinking about how all this works. And with that, I will just say, Joanna is right. We did have a report that we issued last year. We're still working on that. You can get it at internetsociety.org/Leos where we talk and frame a lot of these issues. With that I'll turn to it Larry to drive into lasers more.
>> LARRY PRESS: Can you see me and hear me?
>> DAN YORK: We can hear you and see you.
>> LARRY PRESS: Let me see. I've got to figure how to share my screen and get some slides going too.
All right. Can you see my slides.
>> DAN YORK: We do.
>> LARRY PRESS: Okay. All right. I'm going to talk about, as Dan said. And we gave a great opening. I'm going to be very focussed and niche, which is optical laser communication, laser communication between space and the ground. Not even just that one slide on the internet, intersatellite linkses. And the reason I'm doing it is because I think it may have a significant impact on the sustainable development goal, number 9 in particular.
So you can see the picture on right. It depicts a few satellites in the sky in space. And kind of narrow lines between them are inner satellite links that Dan talked about.
And the thicker lines depict laser links communicating with ground stations, or gateways, on the ground. And I'm going focus my talk on the links to the ground stations. I only have one slide... let's see. There you go. One slide on the intersatellite links. Dan said SpaceX was the first. They now have about 8,000 optical terminals in orbit.
And they have recently begun launching their second generation, which go faster. They 100 gig bits, up to 100 gig bits for second. Each satellite has three terminals. Forward and backward as the satellite is going. The third can go left or right. And I'm not sure, who knows. But I think it can perhaps go down, point to the ground. And that is what we're going to talk about now.
Satellite communication between the satellite and the ground.
Why are we concerned with or excited about optical? What optical communication? Right now it is radio frequency communication to those ground stations. And optical has many, many advantages. I've listed them on the left. I'm not going read 'em to you. Maybe the most interesting is license free. There is no problem with getting interference with spectrum that there is with the radio frequency.
It is like a laser pointer. And more like flashlight that spreads out and the signalling gets confusing and even some side signals that completely don't go to the right place.
What is to like? Things like cloud and rain get in the way of optical signals. They can distort them and cut back that you are power.
So the payoff would be really great. As just illustrated. And for that reason, many really smart people in business people are working on it. I'm going run through really quickly five groups. I am not going say much about any of them. But I will have links, a lot of links that you can follow up on all of these.
Okay, NASA has been doing it since 2013. They have gone many project, many experiments with space to ground communication, optical. And I'll just say this one. 200 gig bits per second from a cube sat from space to the ground. That is thousand times faster than we're used to. And that is the kind of payoff that will come from this stuff if it works.
Universities are doing a lot of experiments in research. This is interesting. It is from the federal technical university in Switzerland. They have got a deal where they have got a satellite, terminal up here on top of a mountain. And they have a terminal down here at their institute. The whole distance there about 53 kilometres. And you can see it is going through some of this stuff like turbulent air and it is over a lake with water vapor. The kind of stuff that screws up laser transmission in the atmosphere.
And with adaptive optics that they have, little tiny chip with 97, 90 adjustable mirrors that can make adjustments 15,000 times a second. Things like that are inconceivable, but they exist.
And they are also working on modulation schemes. A way to encode the ones and zeros into the signal. So they have been able to achieve like 94 terabits per second. .94. Almost a terabit per second.
Transmission rates. They say they are look working on new modulation schemes and software to make it go faster. And they can be scaled up to 40 channels. So that would be an incredible amount of data coming through face.
And the second university one has to do not with the data transmission rate. But with being able to track the satellites, like Dan says, as they move across the sky.
So what these guys have done is put up a drone. And it goes back and forth at 65 kilometers per hour. But that simulates the 1 degree per second that a satellite in low earth orbit would transcend. And in fact they have no trouble tracking it and transferring data from it.
The military, no surprise, is really interested in this stuff. One of the most really interesting thing is the space development agency. It is part of the Space Force. They have the transport layer constellation. It is going to between 300 and more than 500. They haven't really decided yet. Satellites. And these will have laser links between satellite, and also space‑to‑ground laser links.
And key thing is this, they have a real philosophy of working with commercial suppliers. So that is really an interesting one to watch.
Speaking of commercial suppliers. Aalyria, the as start‑up. Acquired intellectual property for two products from Google. Really bunch of guys that used to work at Google. The products are called spacetime and tightbeam. And tightbeam is an optical communication technology. And space thyme is a network management system. Like the guys in Switzerland, they are working an elaborative approach. And adjustable mirrors and clever software.
And they say they are getting now ‑‑ they also do tests from a mountain near their headquarters. And they are getting tests that are going at 400 mega bit for seconds. So if you have four of those that's one point ‑‑ yeah, you can put channels together which give you 1.6 terabits per second. And the reason I want to bring them up in this context. On the right‑hand side you see a couple of slides from a demonstration they have done. I'll tell you morn the next slide.
One of the things in the demonstration is software is the surface temperatures on the earth and atmospheric conditions. And that enables Spacetime, which is their other product to route around the atmospheric conditions as before.
Spacetime. This is from the same demo. Iic see the scope of this thing. This is a demo of a hypothetical network that reaches from the moon to earth.
If you zoom in you can see it is also working at ships on sea and airplanes in the air and satellites in orbit. So it is a very comprehensive network operating system for controlling fixed and mobile assets and the links between them on the earth and wherever they are, spouse, outer space, deep space. They are definitely have deep space in their planning.
Sent me. Had a little exchange on Twitter yesterday about how yeah they are heading for Mars, not just the moon.
This project is super comprehensive. Buts as the reminiscent of the Arca net back in the old days. And I list some of the reasons here. The software is open source. They are trying to do standards. N can access each other's assets. It really sounds both ambitious and like the Arca net but a thousand times more ambitious.
I would strongly advise you to watch the demo. And these slides came out of.
Okay. Another commercial thing. University. Should say commercial. I'm sorry.
Another commercial company that is worth paying a little attention to is Intelsat. They are one of the traditional geostationary satellite operators Dan talked about. They are doing interesting partnership products. They are working with SpaceX to test space to ground optical communication. And they are going to use the Aalyria operating system.
So keep an eye on them.
I mentioned that China. We have to talk about China these days. And Dan mentioned. China seems to be behind in this optical communication between space and the earth. I can only find these two projects. Just looking around for the talk. I talked to a friend of mine in China and knowing everything about about the Chinese internet and space business. And she couldn't add to. This they don't seem to have much going at the present.
Okay. There is bad news though. That was a lot good news and lot of people, smart people putting lot of energy into it. The bad news is there are no optical ground stations anywhere. So that is going to take a bunch of investment. One approach is some of it can be done by augmenting the existing some of the RF gateways that are already existing. If they are in good geographic locations that might make sense. Because they already have the real estate around the ground station. They have power coming in. Most important, they all have high‑speed internet connectivity at their locations.
If you look at this map, these are the green pinpoints are the SpaceX gateways. And in North America, there are 75 of 'em.
And you can see some of these gateways are in southwest United States. Some are in northern Mexico. Some are in Arizona. Arizona, in Australia. Places that might make suitable locations for a optical gateway.
The other thing though. That won't be enough. You will have to construct new gateways. One would try to put them in arid regions. Locations near centres of demand, of locations that have already high‑speed internet, terrestrial connectivity. Observatories come to mind as likely places to have 'em. They have a lot of those characteristics.
But it is going to take a lot of money, careful analysis, to build that infrastructure out. If this stuff takes off.
To come back to the development goal, sustainable development goal. Number 9. I just want to talk for a second or two about Africa. Right now in Africa there are only two gateways. To the SpaceX ‑‑ SpaceX has only two publicly owned gateways. And so they could use some connectivity.
They have an advantage in that they are ‑‑ the brown, sort of arid spots on this map. Tend to be in the north. And the south. Though there are others.
And that is an advantage, because the satellites have incline orbits. They don't just go around the equator. But that kind of go north and south. Some of 'em almost go over the poles. And what that means is these intersatellite links are going to be more efficient for them than for north/south links, than they are for going east and west. So that is looking good for Africa if you can imagine some gateways in the north and some gateways in the south.
The other thing is seasonal variation. Obviously it is, this is ‑‑ it is not ‑‑ in the northern hemisphere it is different than on the southern hemisphere. And by having this kind of north, south. Maybe in these areas that are in the same longitude gives them another advantage. They will have good weather at least somewhere. Or maybe in both places at all times.
Now. A real fast positive view of the whole thing. This is a reality cheque. This quote personally, I don't think optical to low earth orbit is really going to go.
And the guy that said sit the president and CEO of KSAT, which is a Norwegian company. An established optical ground station company. And they tried an optical ground station in Greece in 2020 and it failed exerlly. There are tons of research and development that needs to be done.
So that is about what I was going to say. I've got you can see here my e‑mail address. And place where I talk about this stuff a lot.
And if you would like to see a copy of the slides, which have tonnes of links, send me a request.
Oh. Yeah. Here is a frequency terminology cheat sheet. for those who would like it. And that is the end.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you so much Larry. That was a lot of information and particularly appreciate the developing countries focus. That is one of the themes we have been exploring. Throughout both of the projects. The one Dan mentioned and the one that our next speaker and myself have been working on.
So it is most appreciated that you have provided us with this very broad technological overview. And my sincerest thanks to Dan for his lasting support and yet another great intervention.
With that out further ado, hand the floor to professor Berna Akcali Gur. Again with the kind request to our speakers to try and limit their intervention to 7‑10 minutes. I'll hand the floor over the Berna with a kind request for brief review of whether all of these wonderful technologies are actually recollected. And the if so if there is a data regulation component we might wish to focus on. Berna, the floor is yours.
>> AKCALI GUR BERNA: Thank you Joanna. I have PowerPoint? Okay. There we go. Delighted to be here today to discuss data governance in broadband satellite services. I am joined by an esteemed panel of experts who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience on this topic. And as you said, my task is to delve into the regulatory aspects of satellite connectivity. And hopefully hopefully provide you all with some insight.
So the mega satellite constellations attracted wide scale global attention on 26th of February, 2022, two days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. While Elon Musk's SpaceX founder and CEO responded to request from the Ukrainian deputy prime minister confirming on twitter that Starlink satellite service has become active in Ukraine.
This news came after the cyber attack by Russia on another satellite system owned by wire sat. The primary target of the cyber attack is believed to have been the communication lines of the Ukrainian military. As it was just one hour before Russia launched a major invasion of Ukraine.
But the impact was more extensive. It affected thousands of internet users. And internet connected devices. Including the wind farms in central Europe. It is unclear whether the spillover was unintentional.
While the solution for the disruption was another satellite system, Starlink. A new mega conservation bank. Until this time, the provision of broadband internet had been considered an experimental alternative to undersee an on the ground telecommunication services but suddenly became the communication lifeline for a war torn country.
As expected this received lot of press coverage. The celebrity status of the company owner also contributed to this. Around this time we saw it being used in disaster zones such as flooding in northern New South Wales. And remote villages in Tonga. And soon after launched services in Ukraine up rising started. If government provided restrictions on internet access to protests called many Mr. Musk. This time he wasn't able to help at first and ‑‑. It wasn't because link servicesdy not have coverage. But primarily for legal reasons. There were restrictions for providing services to Iran. And Iranian government had not authorised Starlink to provide services. Within their borders.
So in both of these examples, the company acted in a manner that reflected the preferences of its home state. So in the first year that this company started providing services, it ‑‑ shy away from making political choices. And as we all know the concerns regarding cross‑border data transfers and data governance have a geopolitical dimension as well. In that sense. Relying on this infrastructure for transferring, storing or processing data is very much perceived as relying on a U.S. infrastructure for connectivity. And data transfers.
As one would expect in current state of affairs, Russia and China have already declared they will not allow the provisional satellite broadband by U.S. service provider and cited cybersecurity as the main concern.
Okay. So it is not...
Confirming the prevalence of data governance concerns in a survey Joanna and I conducted for our Isaac foundation funded research on global governance of satellite broadband, the respondents chose data privacy as one of their primary cop concerns. And another question chose international treaty on data flows and standards development approach as best way to tackle concerns regarding global data value chain being monopolized by small number of Leo broadband companies.
This survey was more than a year ago. We're still in the early stages of this technology. So so we'll see what the future brings and how the data governance regulations take shape.
So far I've established two things. Geopolitical dimension to use of ‑‑. And data garches start ‑‑ what sort of measures can countries employ to address their concerns?
Some countries and UK have already licensed Starlink to provide services. Although they have or plan to have their own satellite systems. Plan is to create a competitive market. But all licensed service providers are expected to comply with the domestic data governance regimes. On the PowerPoint you see Starlink's commitment on its website to comply with the GDPR for its customers in the EU.
Major space baring nations also embarked on projects that will give them their own satellite constellations.
A good example China and EU. Justification goes beyond data governance but it is a significant factor. What is the exact contours of domestics jurisdiction over satellite services?
While the provision of satellite services in particular country subject to that country's laws and regulations, and framework covers much more than data governance. The satellite companies need to comply with all to be able to provide services in a particular jurisdiction.
The ground station, for that the companies will need authorisation from each restriction. Even if they do not need to establish one technically. They may be required to.
However at domestic level it is a national regulatory agency that assigns them.
Of course in compliance with what is agreed at the ITU. If the companies provide their services directly to consumers, they will also likely need an entire service provider license which include license for use of terminals by consumers.
The importation of their user terminals will also be subject to the import requirements of the national authorities.
The state will want to cheque the conformity of their new measures with commitments in their trade treaties. While satellite connectivity is not new, and the fact that it is being provided by a mega constellations does not mean existing regulations do not apply. Regulators updating the provisions to address unique challenges of mega constellations.
But essentially, the existing regulatory framework is applicable.
I hope this brief explanation gives you an overall idea. I want to go back to ‑‑ hold on.
If you would like to read more on the topic, please cheque our website. I'll provide the link in the chat. Where you can find the detailed report on the subject and the short policy papers for governments and Civil Society organisations. Thank you.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you Berna. Wonderful. Thank you very much indeed. There seems to be lot of regulation on both political communications and data. Yet when we look at the advancements in infrastructure the question is where these are sufficient. Whether they are relevant. Whether we are back to national laws and national regulations.
And whether the multistakeholder model still matters with regard to internet connectivity.
And with that question in terms of hue developmental help should be provided to countries who are still deciding on how to expand internet connectivity in their jurisdictions, I turn floor to our next speaker, Dr. Uta Meier‑Hahn.
And I'm very much looking forward to Uta discussing the developmental context of new technology supporting internet connectivity, Leos in particular. I know you have been working on these topics. I'm very curious to hear your perspective. Uta thank you for being here. The floor is yours.
>> DR. UTA MEIER-HAHN: Thank you so much. So my name is Uta Meier‑Hahn. I'm with GIZ. A public benefit federal enterprise. So we support the German government and host of public and private sector clients in achieving their objectives in international cooperation.
GIZ, some may know this or not. We work around 120 countries around the globe on a wide variety of areas. And that also includes fostering digital policy. So why work on geosatellite or satellite in general? Isn't that expansive niche technology with limited capacity that will never ever be the internet for you and me?
These arguments I keep hearing. And they may sound and be valid. So I need ‑‑ I feel like we need clarification about what question can and what we cannot expect if satellite internet. And here I would like to make four points.
First is about time. Which we don't have. Because internet connectsivity widely recognised as catalyst for development. This means that regions with access to better internet connectivity are progressing at a relatively rapid pace. Compared to those without.
And this means again in other words that the digital divide or divides grow larger with time. Therefore it is important to not only increase meaningful connectivity overall. But to to so quickly.
This is where Leo satellite or broadband from space may come in. Requires minimal terrestrial infrastructure as we have just heard which is heavily under development. And because of that very future, it could bridge digital divides faster than other connectivity solutions.
So this to my mind is not a discussion about either or. It is not about either fibre or mobile infrastructure development. We must continue this obviously but we can complement with efforts from broadband from space to make speedy advancements in connecting the unconnected.
So I find the sense of urgency in the discussion about connectivity that sometimes gets lost in this discussion.
Second point about robustness. Leo satellite internet, broadband from space, can provide communications when traditional local networks may have gone down. As was just mentioned by Berna. Due to conflict. Due to natural disasters. Due to man made disasters. And having this type of connectivity from space in place can be like a safety net for critical infrastructures.
I wish it was not the attack on the Ukraine that would serve as an example over and over for the criticality of satellite internet for governmental communication and conflict.
My third point is about the market. The market for internet connectivity solutions. And that point is very simple. Alternatives for connectivity enlarge the market. And depending on the business models of the providers, which vary as we have heard, choice may arise for end users.
That again, can stimulant competition and if some Orr factors about the local connectivity situation and the ecosystem on the ground are given as well, affordability of internet access can increase. Not only for the users of broadband from space.
This is a thesis. I encourage us to monitor the pricing level development in regard to this. Empirically.
Fourth point goes more directly to the global dimension of the governance of Leo satellite internet. Has been alluded to in previous talks. All global citizens can be viewed as stakeholders in broadband from space. Because they share the risks. That are associated with this technology. Like the serious damage that could occur from space debris, environmental cost of launching rockets, and others.
And at the same time, there is and probably will be only a handful of space‑fearing nations who industries on the verge of operating their own satellites from space. What does this mean? The foreseeable future the shared fate of most country will be that they remain customers of only a few providers of broadband from space in very concentrated market.
Also due to the limits of natural resources, such as space, such as frequencies, as long as the advancements with the ‑‑ what Larry press was talking about are not reality yet. So these countries may ask themselves if the connectivity that the providers of broadband from space deliver together as well as individually, comes at acceptable conditions for them.
Think of the digital policy quality of that type of connectivity. What do I mean by that? For one, every provider can be expected to comply with the rules of their own jurisdiction, of origin, when it comes to how they treat the traffic T data they transmit. Varying provisions for data protection, cybersecurity regulation or frankly surveillance. And then of course in addition, everything that Berna has just mentioned with regard to the national regulation.
But also the jurisdiction of origin matters.
And second, how can countries make sure that their connectivity is not terminated involuntarily, for instance, because provider goes bankrupt. As we've seen with a first wave of industry development. Or because of political leanings as Berna just pointed out.
So I encourage us to think about the qualities of those policy underpinnings for lee Leo satellite connectivity. Especially when broadband from space shall safeguard critical infrastructures.
That is an issue of global internet governance. But the limited resources in space and frequencies prohibit unlimited growth of the industry. So there is not better policy qualities by growth. There is a privileged position of a few. And that may give rise to different notion of responsibility for these providers as well.
So far all providers offer their own proprietary hardware as we've heard for base stations and other equipment. So working towards standardisation and interoperability of equipment could go long way towards preventing log‑in effects.
From what we hear at this moment, the European Union constellation Iris square might be the first one to go into that direction of at least standardizing such hardware. We will see about the degrees of openness.
Let me close with a few empirical observations so we don't only speak on high level. In order for LEO Satellite internet to operate in certain country, regulatory and institutional setup is favorable. However this can be a major undertaking specifically as the industry is developing so quickly to put such a framework 234 place. And that is why it appears beneficial for non space fairing nations to on the whawnd document and share best practises in order to second possibly identify identify opportunities to align the interests with providers.
Together we have looked at emerging developments in tent of the par near counts are. Initially on the African continue net to get a rough idea. And I don't have time to go much detail so I will keep it brief but we found that countries are moving relatively I quickly to authorise and license Leo systems. So there is demand.
Examples, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Rwanda. Tunisia considered trialing. And others deciding what path to take or regulatory approach towards making requirements for businesses. Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
One thing that will be important to notice also we found lot of these countries already participate in international satellite organisation. They are all WTO members. They have experienced in negotiating issues at the relevant ITU conferences for communication. And also have experience from previous satellite developments in introducing other satellite systems into their connectivity ecosystem. And what comes on top of it with regard to the topic of our session, about data governance is that they are all member of the African you knew union which is active will developing issues. And recently put in a framework that will serve to develop local policies around this.
So these experiences will have provided most regulatory policy makers and those countries with years of experiences, with skills to handle broadband from space and I suggest that we build on this to fast track participation by others.
So to sum up, if asked why LEO Satellite internet is important for development, I will answer new satellite internet, broadband from space, can contribute quickly to closing the digital divide or divides. It can serve to increase robustness of internet connectivity. It enlarges the market for internet provision. It is not going to go away for the foreseeable future. And so there is a lot of room for dialogue, for coordination and mutual capacity building. Particularly ‑‑ not only, but particularly among non space‑fairing nations to shape satellite internet to the benefit of all.
Thank you.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Wonderful. Thank you very much. That look for target to approach to developing countries and possible recommendations to governments are looking into deploying Leos into their jurisdictions. I will save follow up questions for the Q&A and I'm certain there will be questions from the room but thank you very much for highlighting that specific aspect of new technologies raply developing.
And last but not LEO Satellite, please let me turn the floor over to Peter Micek. I am certain in his intervention Peter will tell us more why access now might have an interest in data governance through low earth orbit satellites.
>> PETER MICEK: Thank you. Responsibly current regulatory risks and opportunities. I will come in with our perspective as a human rights organisation. Access Now always needs an introduction. We are a global organisation that defend and extends digital rights in people in communities at risk. And are team members in more than 35 countries encountering the emerging Low Earth Orbit satellite second in a number of different ways. And that is what I hope to present a bit of.
So I suppose I could start, you know, with some of the risks that we see as a human rights organisation. We are very concerned about the consolidated control over this sector as it stands now. Speakers have mentioned Starlink is the first mover. They have that advantage here. But it is up to the whims of the founder and controller of that firm which constitutes the industry right now. Of, you know, available retail services. And our partners in Ukraine are very concerned that the entire nation, its military, civilians and Civil Society are dependant on this one company and its eggtistic owner, who seems to want to decide the outcome of the war. And there is really little we can do about it. So Civil Society again, you know, desperate for connectivity, eager to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. And, you know, access and exercise fundamental rights like freedom of expression. And of course we'll reach for any opportunities we can.
Access Now coordinates the #keep it on coalition against internet shut downs. This is a global coalition of more than 300 Civil Society organisations fighting intentional disruptions of connectivity.
And inevitably, especially during longer term shut downs, as we see in Sudan, in keech mere, in Myanmar. People look to the skies with hope. With hope that they can find a connection that will let them tell their story to the world, release the evidence that they have collected on human rights abuses and atrocities, tell loved ones that they are still alive or that they need electronic money transfers. You know all the things that we lie rely on for connectivity become compounded and pressurised in situations of armed conflict. And desperation. And of course people are going to look to satellites. And unfortunately though as I said, this leaves us in, you know, the hands of very few, you know, western companies, again.
So I think it's worth noting that, you know, the user terminals themselves do put people at risk. So another risk here is that, you know, this consolidated control creates single points of vulnerability. I know we don't want to get too much into cybersecurity but it was really exciting to see this summer at the DEFCON conference, a life competition where teams actually hacked into a satellite, a Low Earth Orbit satellite. Orbiting the earth in realtime.
And that was I believe the first ever such competition where a satellite was hacked in real time, for prizes. It was a Leo satellite. Launched on June 5th. And if someone could put in the chat. It's hackasat is the website they used. I'll put it there.
And, you know, A few things were learned from this competition. I think one was real interesting to see the satellite went dark for four hours as they crossed over Antarctica, I think it was. And so the teams didn't know if their hacks were successful. They had to wait until the satellite came back within reach. To both deliver their payloads and extract the data. And the winning team was able to hack into the camera on the satellite. Which was about this big. And take pictures of specific points on earth, which was pretty cool to see.
But underscores there is active interest in attacking the cybersecurity of these. So to the extent that we're dependant on them. With incredibly sensitive data. If we're talking about bases where people are vulnerable and at risk. Which, you know, probably overlaps a bit with the spaces that are currently not covered by terrestrial connectivity. Then, you know, that highlights and exacerbates the risks.
Same goes for you know, these humanitarian contexts. Many operators are looking at ways to ‑‑ operators of aid organisations. Providers of humanitarian assistance are looking to more efficiently deploy after natural disasters or, you know, human disasters. And are certainly looking at these solutions. But again, what kind of ‑‑ are we sending them into a trap? You know, where there is actually increased vulnerability and dependency on these systems that can be, you know, turned off or, you know, deprecated through commercial phase outs at a moments notice.
And yeah. The last point and I kind of want to get at was this pixelated regulatory picture. Right? We've seen the number of different potential frameworks that apply. I've mentioned humanitarian law. There is of course space law. Out here in the convention centre expo there is actually a high altitude platform system. A giant wing that is being demonstrated this week. That is not a Low Earth Orbit satellite. But it is meant to fly for six months at a time on solar power at about 62,000 feet. Maybe somebody can do the metric conversion. But it is really exciting to see. Right? People are excited about these. But that would, you know, bring in another, you know, aviation law would apply there.
Telecoms law. I think in various ways these firms are more akin to telecoms that we know. In other ways they are more akin to fly by night, top of the stack application and session layer web start‑ups. And it is interesting to see how, you know, these different analogies and different body os law might apply and regulation might apply or might not be adaptable. Before but as Civil Society in this pixelated regulatory picture, we don't know where to engage. We don't know how to engage. We don't have access to the international telecommunication union as many companies and governments do.
And we don't, you know, we are not adept at space law fora. I don't know the intricacies of space law are open to Civil Society input.
I do want to finish by talking about data protection and privacy at issue. And, you know, the positive is that human rights are universal. Right? Universal.
So these rights that are interdependant, indivisible. They have got laser links between all of the human rights already set up. This is a framework that we can depend on and that we should utilise. And it is no different for the fundamental right of data protection. The fundamental right in here is in the individual where they are. Where they reside.
And to the extent a processer of this data touches and concerns the EU, then the GDPR will apply to any personal data that is flowing. And we can assume that it will.
And so, you know, I think it behooves this sector to put a foot forward and to engage in Civil Society organisations like Access Now, like EDRRY in Europe. Across Africa where growing steam. Convention 108 already has footprint. There is a basis for, you know, global protection of our fundamental rights and data protection. There is a growing system of regulators to enforce and apply that right. And, you know, we are going to be looking to do so.
You know one caveat ‑‑ sorry. I'll finish on this.
Is that, with respect to your presentation, these companies do not need to comply with these various laws and regulations. They are currently operating in Iran. And in many other places where they are not welcome. They are not in compliance. But they are delivering services to people, including people at risk on the ground who need the services.
And so I think in that sense, it may be more akin to the top layers of the stack. In that they may not ‑‑ they may decide not to establish offices in local countries and submit themselves to various jurisdiction. If they find it in the interests of, you know, the companies. And ‑‑ and I will assert that, you know, userrers at risk in Myanmar are very keen on gaining access to these tools in a way that, you know, probably will not ever comply with, you know, the local jurisdiction and regulations.
So leave it there.
Thank you.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you very much peter. There is nothing more comforting to motivator than speakers who have differing opinions, that is a discussion ready made.
But just to keep us on track. And I do note that our panlts likely do have direct feedback to the further interventions. And I would like to turn the floor over the Berna and kindly request her assistance with the Q&A. There might be questions in the room which I am not able to assess moderating remotely.
If there are any questions in the chat or from our remote participant, do feel free to raise your virtual hand. And you will be granted the floor.
Berna, if you could support us here with the Q&A. That would be most appreciated. Put.
>> AKCALI GUR BERNA: So if any guest on the floor have questions, you may come to the microphone. At the moment we do not seem to have any. So maybe Joanna you can start with your question and give time to our guests to think about theirs.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you. I do note that Dan would like to directly respond. Feel free to take the floor.
>> DAN YORK: Sure, it was great to hear what Berna said and Uta and Peter.
Peter, I'm with you when I got involved with the Internet Society projects back in beginning late 2021, I sort of naively had this idea. Because I had no exposure to satellite information. So I had this naive idea that, for instance, in Sudan, you know, we could somehow get a terminal into Sudan somehow and be able to provide it to people so they could be able to have internet access and share information and all this stuff.
And my ‑‑ my, my naivety lasted until I got talking to people like Berna and Joanna about, ITU and space law and regulations around that. And you are absolutely right. Peter is absolutely right that there is no technical reason why this cannot happen. You know, Starlink can be turned on for every country in the world at some point. And on a technical level, that can go on. So this is what we see happening in Iran.
The challenge of course is the legal side. And the reality that it is bounded on the borders based on this fact that as Berna talked about you know, they have to go into each and every country and get approval for the landing rights, for the spectrum b to be able to go for down and up. They have to get a consumer approval. They have to go and do all of that for each and every country.
And so it is a case where ‑‑ and if they ‑‑ you know, I think you can get away with it in doing it in Iran. Because quite honestly the rest of the international world is not going to be too concerned. In fact they would probably prefer it turned on there.
However if you turn it on for other countries and other spaces, you start to get into I don't know very ‑‑ lots of international pressure, attention, things on that. It's just not something you can go and do.
You have some countries such as China that have been very clear that if it gets turned on in Kaine they might take actual activity. They have done war gaming scenarios around shooting down satellites. There are lots of pieces that sort of keep that in cheque at the moment.
Which to be honest, I was disappointed about. Because I was hoping we could be that, you know, get that freedom, get that out there and everywhere.
You also raise the other good point. Which is that unlike a passive like a geostationary dish for broadcast TV, pointed up at a geostationary satellite. The as one way down link. It is just receiving the signals passively getting that. But once you do this for internet access, you are doing two‑way communication. And you do, to Peter's point, you can expose your ‑‑ you are exposing that transmitter. You know in the Ukraine, I know there have been some of the groups there, that are making sure they only turn the transmitters on at certain times. That they put them away.
You see pictures of groups of people putting them at a distance away from where the people are in case the signal intelligence hones in on it and targets it with a weapon or something. So you are exposing yourself because it is two‑way communication. And that is a critical difference in what we're talking about here.
And I also join you Peter, and others in that concern, about, you know, the control of billionaires. It is right now it's primarily you are seeing, you know, SpaceX, with Elon Musk. You see project Kuiper which ultimately is Jeff Bezos. You see those kind of solutions up there. One Webb now purchased by Utilsat. A French corporation. And different things around there. But it is all these bigger players.
We don't have what we mad in the early days of the internet, for instance, in the terrestrial base. University networks, habeas networks. Large challenge is sheer cost in launch all of this. But lots going on in there.
I'll defer to others.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you.
>> AKCALI GUR BERNA: I would also like a short note. As lawyers we tend to explain what law is. How the regulations apply.
And so that doesn't always represent how we personally think about the matter. Yes?
So if you ask me a question about the human rights law approach, then my answer should have ‑‑ would have had a different perspective on the matters that we have just discussed.
So I think you know as always we tend to believe that rule of law is important. And that you know if you are going to breech the rules, then you are damaging the system as a whole.
So taking these into consideration, my talk was more about explaining how the rules and regulations apply to this satellite broadband technology. As it is.
So of course Civil Society approach would be different. The human rights law approach would be different. But that was my ‑‑ I didn't include that in my speech. I just wanted to make note of that.
Yeah.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Great. Thank you very much Berna.
I have a sense our other panelists might also have something they would like to add. So I'm going to cheque first if Peter or Uta or Larry have anything to immediately respond, for example, to Dan's comments.
>> LARRY PRESS: All kinds of stuff. Been kind of thought provoking. Yes, I really ‑‑ I'll be up front. I am disappointed and kind of frightened by Elon Musk.
He did amazing things, but he's ‑‑ if you follow him on twitter and stuff that he is starting to post now. It is very political. And it is political in a way that I don't like. So I guess maybe that's ‑‑ do the rest of you guys have concern about that guy?
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Peter, Uta, please do feel free to take the floor.
>> PETER MICEK: Yeah. You know let's get to a place where there is meaningful competition but within a regulatory framework. You know we appreciate innovation.
And Larry I was thinking of your presentation. Because you didn't talk about the '90s, right? Which my understanding was when there was a tonne of interest in the Low Earth Orbit sector. And lot of failures. And so I was, you know, wondering if you could.
>> LARRY PRESS: The one you are probably thinking of is telesat. And tell sat ‑‑ not telesat. What was it called?
>> DAN YORK: Y ridium, global sat. Iridium.
>> LARRY PRESS: No before that.
>> DAN YORK: TeleDiazic.
>> LARRY PRESS: Yeah. It was bill gaits and Saudi Prince and guy at the time recently sold a mobile company. They attempted to do this in the '90s. But the technology just wasn't there. And main reason it failed.
>> DAN YORK: And other point, it was focussed on telecom. Not necessarily focussed on providing internet access at the can kind of scale. And it was really ‑‑ which is what, I mean Iridium is still up there. And they are looking at launching a new range of satellites to provide data services in pieces like that.
But it was ‑‑ but, you know ‑‑ and we don't know. A lot of the systems that are being propose right now may fail in a similar way. You have to figure out do you have the business product that is there.
And the other part is now, 20 years later, almost, you know, 30 years later I guess in some ways. Some of that. You have this enormous change in the capacity of launch systems and mass production of systems of satellites.
That's a lot of change.
>> LARRY PRESS: Right. I think teleDiazic. They weren't ‑‑ they were in fact going for internet connectivity. Internet us different those days. It was mostly ‑‑ for me it was text oriented. Only upper case. I had a teletype at home. But they ‑‑ their ‑‑ the technology was not up for it. And it just wasn't economically viable. The technology ‑‑ it just, it couldn't have been at the time.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you, Larry.
>> LARRY PRESS: Yeah.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: All right. Thank you so much. We do have a question for Mike before I hand the floor over to Uta. Please just read out the question. Just might be that you would like to threarches question as well. The question from Mike reads "radio spectacular acts as regulators to prevent interference and allow coordinated usage. However in the optical domain, there is a effectively no interference that would warrant regulation. What tensions could we see from governments trying to extract fees from the optical spectacular?"
If you wish to address that question directly, Uta, do feel free to do so.
Do take the floor. And then I will ask our other panelists if they wish to address Mike's question directly.
Uta, please the floor is yours.
>> DR. UTA MEIER-HAHN: Thank you. Very much appreciate the question at the same time I find it very far reaching and at this moment a little beyond the level of discussion at the moment of ‑‑ at this stage of development.
But also, it is something they would want to think about, frankly.
But I've also been asked. So what are possible avenues if we acknowledge or if we all establish together that there is an importance of, sort of, some kind of multistakeholder input for the development, further development of this industry and possibly policy options? And what could be things we could be doing? I just want odd throw couple of things in the room so maybe those can be picked up by people who listen here.
So for one of course, there is an option to hold listening sessions. By all the providers. And future providers of the systems. This of course includes the EU, but maybe also the other providers could be interested.
It would certainly go o long way towards providing transparency into their system. Which as this session exemplifies could be demanded. And it would give public opportunity to have their views heard.
Another important thick could be to also talk to financing and investment opportunities. And see what the ‑‑ what the ways of support, finance, impact investors come in to support satellite internet from space in the countries that currently cannot or have not afforded it so far.
We should and could document the best practises in terms of regulatory approaches. Also, with regard to how do these companies that do exist and the countries that do want to be customers. How can they do quick on boarding? And how can they move the services into ‑‑ activate the services quickly?
There is another aspect of really doing research. Like financing, research about this. Because as we all seen in preparation for the session, there is not so mump empirical evidence with regard to many of the important questions of this topic. There may be an opportunity for some countries to think about twinning programmes, to sort of move together on forward on this topic.
And specifically with regard to Iris square, I feel like it is worth throwing in the room, that depending on the views being held from the finances of this constellation, and the populations that stand behind them. There may be opportunity to also think about connectivity from space as an in kind sort of development service, if you will. So not only providing countries with capacity building they need to set up the institutions, et cetera. But also to really directly just provide that connectivity. I'm not sure if that is being done much before. But it could certainly be an avenue.
And then certainly coalition building in general just to foster interests of this very large common consumer group.
Thank you.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Wonderful. Thank you very much Uta. I'm curious if any of our speakers might have an answer for Mike as well.
That seems a really interesting question. I do agree it is an early stage. Of development. For the optical spectrum infrastructure.
>> DAN YORK: I ‑‑
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Yes, Dan please go ahead.
>> DAN YORK: I think it is a good question. I mean the basic point is that if you are doing optical connectivity, you are, you know, it is a direct connection. You are not in the ‑‑ yeah. It is not shared as ‑‑ I think it is really early. I think we have to see where these things get proved out.
You know Larry provide ad great overview of a lot of different work happening in the space to ground connective and what is going on in that. But I think we've still got a bit go.
To Mike's point, probably good to be thinking about that in advance so these things don't get trapped into regulatory capture or wind up with great impediments to doing that.
But I think we're still early.
>> LARRY PRESS: Yeah just a ‑‑ I feel like we had a kind of a bull session here. Actually I should turn on my... there you go.
You know, with respect to kind of having how to subsidize it and what not, to some extent, I think that takes care of itself. If people in an area, people in a nation can't afford connectivity to, say, SpaceX or one of these little things. To the extent that that will mean they have excess capacity over that nation, and to some extent that ‑‑ I remember when Elon Musk first did, he came out and said hey we're going to charge the same price everywhere. And that was crazy. Because it makes no sense. You want to charge a price that will connect ‑‑ keep your ‑‑ ease up your entire available capacity.
So to some extent, just the economics of it take care of kind of different income levels of different countries in different regions.
Make sense?
I mean ‑‑
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you ‑‑
>> LARRY PRESS: It's come to pass. He definitely charges different rates in different countries.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you very much Larry. I'm just going to quickly cheque if any of our panelists would like to add anything to the session. We are about to wrap up and before I do so, just going to cheque if anyone would like to add anything we might have missed or if there is any direct feedback from the room. Berna, please, go ahead.
>> AKCALI GUR BERNA: Just to add to Uta's points. Well we overlap. But what would we advise to developing countries.
I want to refer back tour to our policy paper and quickly list what we had recommended them to effectively use this technology.
So we recommended them to e evaluate and update domestic regulations related to licensing and authorising satellite broadband services, to consider the different business models and impact on autonomy when deciding on gateways for example. And we recommended forming regional alliances to enhance achievement of their local policy goals.
And we also recommended them to participate actively in the ITU consultations. Especially in the ITUR, which manages frequency spectrum and orbital resources. And again this is through regional alliances as they are doing now. It will enhance their chances of achieving their desired outcomes.
And also, they should reassess their commitments on the trade treat this. They are not set in stone. They could be renegotiated. And these should be considered with their renewed interest on priorities associated with this technology.
And also familiarize themselves with space law which is not ‑‑ can hasn't been to many of interest non space fairing nations. I think rules is essential to making informed decisions.
And holistic concentrations of these actions I think is necessary to ensure that initiatives align with Sustainable Development Goals.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you very much. Dan, please go ahead.
>> DAN YORK: Sure. I would just ‑‑ one thing I want to say about the panel. I just want to say to Uta that I loved her points she had. I think you very succinctly summarised really some of the key issues and points.
I would add a point. The robustness, resiliency is something we've seen as a critical part. I'm a volunteer here in the United States for a organisation, the IT disaster resources. And they have been deploying in spaces like Florida with hurricane Ian and other parts in the western United States. And they can take a satellite dish on a pickup truck, for instance, and bring it in to provide wifi connectivity for first responders and others in the command area.
It is a kind ubiquitous conductivity we've never had access to before. It is mind blowing what it can do and the spaces around that. So it is important, you know, for all the challenges, there is an amazing amount that it can do. In the right ways. And I think we need to figure out how to get it right.
I think it really is ‑‑ I would also point what Berna just mentioned. A lot of us in the internet space, if we interact with the ITU. We primarily interact with the ITUish T, the telecommunications sector or D around development. We don't do much as historically with the ITUR, the radio telecommunications side. But that is where all of this happens in satellites because of the spectrum.
And people should pay attention to to the world radio Congress this next November here, November, December. Because that will be every four years the gathering of people to talk about this.
And while Leos aren't directly on the agenda. There are side conversations. So I would encourage people to pay attention to that.
And finally pointed would be just we need to have more of these conversations. Because this is this new emerging field. There is lot of satellites going to be launched the next while that is happening. And we need to collectively make sure that we can get it right to the degree that we can from a societal point of view.
So I encourage everybody to lead Berna's document that was in there. Read Leos documents. Other documents and get people talking about this. Because we have to be talking about this.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you. Peter do go ahead.
>> PETER MICEK: Quickly. Thanks. Yeah to piggy back and reinforce Dan's comments. We need more conversations but as Civil Society we are heavily dependant on governments in this space. And governments are, you know, I think putting forward a lot of the funding necessary. They are going to be doing a lot of procurement, including thank you their deference industries and defence spending.
And you know, presumably they are the ones talking to these companies. I'm very privileged person. You know, white male in the U.S. I know the public policy director for SpaceX. And you know, I can't get any of my calls returned.
So I think just to underscore what an asymmetrical disadvantage we're at when we're trying to influence public policy in this space. That we are heavily dependant. And, you know, governments, you know ‑‑ it seem to be in lot of competition over this sector. But, you know, I'm buoyed by the attention like yesterday the Freedom Online Coalition launched these called donor principles on human rights in the digital age. And I think those are getting at ways to harmonise and raise standards Arnold government procurate and support for new and emerging technologies. And should urgently be applied to this space.
>> KULESZA JOANNA: Thank you very much, Peter. I could do nothing more but to strongly support all of the points that have just been made.
We do need to have more of these conversations. And I do welcome ‑‑ (?). It is a theme that the multistakeholder community should pay attention to before it is too late. As our speakers have emphasised during this panel.
We are out of time. So I will refrain from summarising the panel more thoroughly.
Thank you very much for joining us. Sincerest thanks tour o speakers. Thank you for all the points that you guys have made. Thank you for being here. Both virtually and in person. And to those of you who are in the room or online joining us, do feel free to reach out to the speakers directly and share your feedback. Because this is the time to do Leos policy that serves the broader internet community. Thank you everyone. With this the session is adjourned.