Tonga’s royal shocker

FOREIGN businessmen with grandi ose plans are nothing new in the corridors of Tonga’s royal palace.

But American entreprenaur Matt Nilson and King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV have hatched a scheme which has left the international telecommunications world aghast. What has happened is that Tonga has used its rights as a sovereign nation to reserve the last 16 orbital slots which are available for communications satellites on paths which can offer links between the United States and the fast growing East Asian-Pacific Rim region.

The plan, apparently, is that Tonga will extract impressive revenue from hiring out the slots: without those slots, no intending communications operation can launch any more satellites to cover the Pacific.

Nilson, who heads a telecommuni cations research company based in San Diego, now holds the whip hand. While

industry officials are, by turns, incredulous and outraged, there is nothing wrong with what Tonga has done.

Under the rules of the

119-nation Intelsat consortium, any sov ereign nation can reserve orbital slots at no cost. Nilson said Tonga could lease some of the slots for US$2 million a year.

The idea was Nilson’s, who retired to Tonga three years ago.

The American businessman owns 20 per cent on Tongasat, the government controlled company set up to administer the Tonga’s sudden bargaining chip in space. The company has six employees, little money and very modest offices. It has indicated it might seek partners to raise the US$4OO million needed to launch its own satellite. Its 16 slots cover positions in space which provide a combined satellite footprint over more than 60 countries, spacing from the U.S.

The slots give a combined footprint over 60 countries

to Iran, and encompassing most of Asia.

Most important, there are no other vacant orbiting positions for companies wanting to provide radio, television and telecommunications links between Asia and the U.S.

Parking slots are limited by inter national law to prevent satellite signals interfering with each other. Intelsat is taking the line that the Tonga Govern ment is nothing more than a front for Nilson and financial speculation. It seems unlikely that Tonga would control its own satellites as Tongasat maintains; more likely it would prefer to rent out the spaces for a dependable annual income.

The problem for Intelsat is that what the South Pacific nation has done is perfectly legal, and there will be no chance to change the rules until 1992 when the next World Administrative Radio Confer ence is due to be held.

Meantime, Intelsat said it wants to pursue changes in global communi cations law to pre vent Tonga selling

for profit much prized orbital slots. The director-general of Intelsat has asked the International Telecommunications Union to consider actions “necessary to prevent such abuses from occuring”. He accused Tongasat of attempting “pecuniary gain and commercial exploi tation” and that the organisation planned to undermine ITC practices by letting the slots go to the highest bidders.

But it still comes back to the bottom line that a small South Pacific nation now controls any future satellite develop ments over an area containing two thirds of the world’s population. Traffic via satellite between Asia and the U.S. now produces annual revenues of more than US$2 billion a year. □