 Welcome to WRC 19, the World Radio Communication Conference being held in Shamashshake in Egypt. And I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio by Mindel de Latore, who is the Chief Regulatory and International Strategy Officer for OmniSpace. Mindel, welcome to the studio. Well, thank you, Max. Happy to be here. Now, I'd like to start off by talking to you a little bit about OmniSpace. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about what OmniSpace is and what you're doing here and why this conference is important to you. Well, thank you. So OmniSpace is a mid-Earth orbit satellite company, and we provide MSS, Mobile Satellite Service, around the world. We're a global service, and we're putting up our second generation system. So we're very interested in a lot of the satellite issues here. But one in particular, which is issue 9.1.1, deals with the particular band that we use. We use the S-band frequencies, and so that particular issue has been studied during the last cycle. And so we're very interested in that particular issue. We're also interested in the bringing into use issues and some of the other issues dealing with satellites as well. So for those uninitiated, what is the S-band and why is it important? Ah, the S-band. It's the 1980 to 2010 megahertz, and it's paired with the 2170 to 2200 band. So the important thing about that band is it's not like the KU and the KA band where you have some rain-fade issues and you have other issues. In that particular band, it's like the C-band where it actually goes through foliage and other things, and so rain doesn't destroy it. So it's actually very good for areas that are tropical in nature and other things. And our company also does the complementary ground component, which is a terrestrial aspect of that as well. So we sort of do the two, not just satellite, but also terrestrial. So trying to explain to people at home who might not be too technically minded. In principle, the spectrum is a finite resource that everybody's fighting for, is that right? Right, exactly. And we're trying to figure out which lanes we can use. Our satellite needs to use particular lanes for going the communications from Earth to the satellite and then back down. And there's some issues with the terrestrial as to whether they're doing the same thing. So that's what we're trying to work out here. So if we were comparing it to a motorway, a freeway for example, you couldn't just widen the lanes. Exactly, exactly. Because the satellite is up and it's operating and you can't just say you're going to change the lanes. They have to be operating in the same way. So that's what we're looking for. We would like to coexist and to figure out a way to do that here. Okay, and in principle, what are the main challenges facing satellite operators at the moment? Well, I think actually it's a really good time to be a satellite operator because technology has changed things so much. Now we have smaller satellites. The satellite that we operate right now is a very large satellite. It's the size of a school bus or a bus. But some of the ones that we're looking at to replace it are much smaller. But they're much more powerful. So the technology has changed so much. And because also another thing that's really important to us is the launching of satellites. Now it's much more competitive and so you have as a satellite operator have a lot of different options. Now as far as the obviously one of the issues always is spectrum. And so that's why we're here. And then obviously the fact that it takes so long to plan your satellite system that by the time it goes up you hope that you'll still be able to use the frequencies and still be able to operate the system. So have you got any idea how many satellites are orbiting the Earth at the moment? Oh, I think it's thousands. And there are going to be many more thousands. Yes, exactly. I was going to say in terms of the size of the satellites that are going up there. And what are the measures being taken to avoid big traffic jams? Well, I think almost all countries now require some kind of collision avoidance and they also require some kind of sort of orbital debris. And those kinds of things are all people are thinking about a lot more these days especially as they put up the mega systems. A lot of your colleagues here have been talking about how satellites very much come into their own emergency situations. I mean, do you think that that's the case or is there much more to it than nowadays? Well, there's much more to it. But I do think that that's one of the issues that we have in the S-band. We're very able to deal with emergency situations in places where there's no communications, no other communications. And then in the cities where you might not use satellite you can actually use those frequencies for terrestrial means. And so that's why it's sort of a different hybrid kind of system that we're looking at. And in terms of affordability, how are things changing in that way? That's a great question because we took over the assets of a bankrupt company. The reason was because they thought that they were actually going to provide something like cellular service. That didn't work out quite so well. And so, but now we're looking at IoT and we're looking at, you know, millions and billions of devices. And so when we can do that through satellite, so you can do, we're working with a lot of mobile network operators that are putting in that system for terrestrial. But when they need it out in the country or out in the mountains or out in, you know, they would absolutely need satellite. So that's where I think that there's a game changer with the IoT that's the Internet of Things for those of the, you know, and so it'll be the little small devices and those will be much cheaper than having a larger device and it'll be, you know, basically 24 hours that they'll be able to get the data and that kind of thing. Back to the conference here. At the end of the results of this conference, everybody will be going home somewhat happy because there will be a general consensus that will be agreed for all the points that are raised here. How does that actually work in practice? Well, it depends on the agenda item, obviously. And I think that, you know, one of the issues that we have in the satellite industry, and I also think actually for the terrestrial industry, is the fact that the lead time for issues here at the ITU is so long because in order to be on an agenda for a WRC, you have to have it, you know, it has to be approved at the previous one. So you're talking about at least a four-year cycle and then often it's an eight-year cycle. The way that technology moves so quickly now, that is, I think, you know, I think the ITU probably needs to be rethinking that a little bit and I think, I'm not sure, I actually started doing WRCs in the 1990s but before that I think they actually had sort of limited kinds of WRCs, so they might have been a space WRC or in fact at that point it was a WARC and we might want to think about doing that again because having this many people take, go away from their real jobs for a month is really different and I think when, you know, if you think about the way that the ITU first started, there were monopolies everywhere. It wasn't a competitive market. It was a super competitive market and everybody, you know, to be away from your real job for a month can be very difficult and so sometimes, you know, your issue doesn't come up for that particular day but so I think it probably needs to be rethought a little bit but how that happens I'm not quite sure. Let's talk about study groups. How important is the work of study groups? I think it's very important, particularly for the satellite industry. I think that all that work tends to happen here. Probably they have other options but for satellite it is here and in fact our issue was studied during the last period and it was studied by two study groups, so study group four in 4C and then study group five in 5D so it had a dual track and that meant that it was even, you know, more closely studied but unfortunately we didn't come out with a result for the conference. So I think that's actually been, you know, probably a negative for this particular agenda item because the work wasn't quite finished. Now you mentioned that you first attended here in 1990 as far as I understand it, in 1990 and today there hasn't been a great rise of female participation here at the conference. I think from the first time that I ever came was at AWAC-92 and at that one there were, I think, 50 U.S. delegates which is not, there are quite a few more now and there were only five women and so now I think that the participation of women in the U.S. delegation is different and you see a lot more women participating but I think we really do need to bring women into the fold. We need to be promoting them to be taking leadership positions at the ITU as well as in this, I think you start at the study group level and then you get into the work level and into the, you know, the radio assembly level and that kind of thing and I think it's very important that we start early with women. And there's an initiative called the Network of Women which has been going here for a certainly, certainly for a fair few years now which is specifically trying to do that, is that right? Yes, exactly. A few of us decided that we wanted to get, try to get more women into the system as we were just talking about, sort of feeding into it. So we started it about, I think it was before work 15 and we started a mentorship program just trying to get women who were experienced to actually have someone that they were, you know, explaining the ropes and everything. So it's a mentor mentee program and it's grown from there and I was just very surprised and really delighted the other day when we had like I think about 200 people that were at the meeting and I think that they have quite a few mentees and mentors. They always need more mentors so, you know, for the women who have been doing this it would be great if they could participate. It doesn't take long. I'm having a very good time with my mentees. So hopefully a brighter future for gender balance here at the conference. Well, thank you so much for joining us in the studio and hopefully we'll catch up with you again soon before the next one. But it's been a pleasure having you here. Okay, well thank you very much. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Thank you.