Attachment 2
Australia’s Responsible Entity for Satellite Communications

by
Cyril Vahtrick

With developments around the world indicating that communications systems via satellite were on the horizon, some early thinking in Australia brought out the need to consider what kind of entity should be responsible, not only for establishing any earth station facilities, but also for participating in, overall system planning on a global basis. Initially there were two conflicting claimants for this responsibility in Australia.

Firstly the Department of Supply was Australia’s signatory to the European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO) and had the responsibility for the chosen Woomera complex in Australia. This included the provision of launch support facilities. In addition, DOS had already entered into an agreement with NASA to provide staff to operate large deep space tracking antennas and this activity was growing and could include providing similar antenna facilities for communication via satellite.

Secondly the PMG’s Department was the Department of State for Communications and also, as the domestic telecommunications entity, it had large technical resources and background experience in the microwave technology which satellites used. Therefore it saw itself as the logical Australian entity to participate in global negotiations on satellite communications.

The existing Australian overseas telecommunications system at the time entailed the international telephone service (via HF radio) being operated by the PMG’s department, with OTC simply providing the HF transmitting and receiving facilities for PMG operators. Therefore, from PMG’s point of view, OTC was simply regarded as a potential user of overseas satellite telecommunications capacity to provide telegraphic services.

Nevertheless, with strong lobbying from OTC, the Postmaster-General proposed that a high level Committee should be set up to report on the question of the responsible Australian authority for international satellite telecommunications. The committee comprised the Director-General, Posts and Telegraphs, the Secretary, Department of Supply and the General Manager of OTC (Trevor Housley).

The Committee realized quickly that it had very little hard information on which to proceed with its task and the first decision it reached was to agree to nominate two officers, one from the PMG’s Department and one from the Department of Supply to be sent to the UK. The PMG representative to be attached to the British Post Office and the DOS representative to the Royal Aeronautical Establishment for the purpose of studying and gaining experience on satellite telecommunications technology and reporting back to the Committee.

While there was routine but brief formal reporting to the Committee from these two officers, OTC felt that it was missing out on more general feed-back including personal reporting by the officers on informal contacts.

At the same time, OTC’s interest in satellites started to increase sharply soon after the trans-Pacific COMPAC submarine coaxial telephone Cable came into service in 1963 because it created an even higher than expected increase in telephone and telex traffic from Australia to major overseas destinations.

The existing HF radio backup system operated by PMG operators, was being augmented against the possibility of cable failure, but even so, this rapidly became less credible as a fallback position because of its lack of anywhere near the capacity to handle the traffic volumes being experienced since the opening of COMPAC. This cable system had the capacity to provide 80 telephone circuits and was rapidly filling.

OTC therefore took the view that, if a viable global satellite telecommunications system came into being in the near future, the answer to proper diversity for Australia’s overseas telecommunications services lay in that direction, with OTC as the logical provider.

OTC’s strong interest in participating directly in satellites was also reinforced by events arising from our experience with the COMPAC project. The PMG’s Department was initially adamant that OTC’s interest in COMPAC should stop at the point where the cable was terminated on land, with the full bandwidth of the cable being handed over to PMG for providing the telephone service. Their idea was that COMPAC would simply become an extension to their domestic trunk telephone system.

In the event, after OTC proved that the PMG domestic trunk telephone signalling system would be incompatible with other international systems, OTC took the decision to establish an international gateway switching and signalling system at the Paddington overseas telecommunications terminal to be operated by OTC. In the event, this was reluctantly accepted by PMG because they had no other viable answer at that time. With the advent of subscriber dialling on international calls, this meant that, to destinations served by COMPAC, OTC de facto operated the international telephone service and not just the telegraphic services.

This line of thought prompted Trevor Housley and Bob Long to re-evaluate OTC’s “junior partner” position which appeared to exist in Australia vis-a-vis PMG and DOS in regard to satellite matters. The outcome was a recommendation to the OTC Commission to create a special senior position to be clearly identified as having responsibility for satellite communications and to promulgate this to other interested parties. OTC appointed Cyril Vahtrick to this position with a general commission to find out what was going on globally in satellite communications, to establish international contacts and to acquire as much information as was available on technological developments.

For the time being, all the initial international satellite meetings leading up to the final proposal to establish a system had been attended by representatives from PMG, DOS and Treasury, as well as OTC. In the end, back in Australia, the necessary Government approvals for Australia’s participation in the proposed international satellite communications system were put in train by OTC. Having participated in the action to date and having a clear understanding of our role as Australia’s international telecommunications carrier, OTC put forward, in a Cabinet Submission, that we were the logical body to be the Australian Signatory to a proposed international operating agreement to establish a satellite telecommunications system. A covering Inter-government agreement would be signed by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

At the last stage, however, the PMG’s Department, in its role as Ministerial Adviser, opposed OTC’s recommendations to the Minister and substituted itself in its role as the Department of State for Communications, as the recommended investor and signatory for the Satellite agreement. OTC’s role would then become that of user only.

OTC became aware of this change in the Commission’s recommendations to the Minister and, through some energetic representations to the Minister which were supported by Treasury and other Departments, OTC managed to restore itself to the recommended role of signatory and investor. Briefly, OTC sought and received Government approval for Australia to become party to the Interim Satellite Agreements, with OTC as signatory to the Special Agreement, carrying an obligation in our case to contribute 2.5 percent of the capital requirements for establishing the initial space segment of a global satellite communication system. This percentage entitled OTC to a seat on the ICSC, enabling us to participate in decisions made by the body.

The Australian Government’s decision to nominate OTC effectively settled the long-standing question among the PMG’s Department, the Department of Supply and OTC as to which organisation would be responsible for public international telecommunications via satellite, although the PMG continued to study the feasibility of a future domestic satellite system.