"The international community has given us the opportunity to make good on our goal of providing a global broadband wireless access network for businesses and institutions all over the world," said Teledesic President Russell Daggatt. "Many countries have put faith in us through this process, and we're committed to working our hardest to live up to that trust."

The biennial conference, which allocates international radio spectrum, designated a pair of 500 MHz bands of spectrum internationally for use by non-geostationary fixed satellite services (NGSO FSS), such as those Teledesic will provide. These are the same paired bands the U.S. Federal Communications Commission licensed to Teledesic in March. The Teledesic system will provide affordable, worldwide "fiber-like" access to telecommunications services such as linking enterprise networks, broadband Internet access, videoconferencing and interactive multimedia.

Two years ago, the 1995 World Radiocommunication Conference identified 500 MHz in each of the uplink and downlink bands for NGSO FSS use, making 400 MHz available for immediate use but freezing 100 MHz until this year's conference. The conference, which officially ended today, also reaffirmed Teledesic's priority in coordinating with other systems and services to use the spectrum.

This year's action removes Teledesic's last major regulatory obstacle. "Combined with our FCC license, this gives us all we need to move forward aggressively to build our system," Daggatt said. "The international spectrum allocation adopted at this year's conference concludes the effort we began at the World Radio Conference in 1995."

Daggatt praised the U.S. delegation for its leadership at the conference. "Ambassador John Bryant, FCC Commissioner Susan Ness and the entire U.S. government team did a tremendous job," he said. "They worked very long hours, seven days a week for four weeks, and the results show. The U.S. effort was a solid success." Bryant, a former U.S. representative from Texas, is regarded as an expert on global communications. The U.S. government team included representatives from the FCC, State Department and National Telecommunications & Information Administration.

Contrary to press reports highlighting conflicts between the U.S. and the French government over the NGSO FSS spectrum allocation, both countries and many others worked closely together during the conference to enable the development and deployment of Teledesic and other NGSO FSS satellite systems. "The efforts on all sides were constructive from the outset, with solid agreement on the ends to be achieved - completing the work on Teledesic started in '95 and laying out a path forward for the other NGSO FSS systems with final decisions on those set for the next World Radio Conference in 1999," Daggatt said.

In the end, Teledesic garnered solid support from all parts of the world. Thirty-seven countries submitted formal written proposals to the conference supporting the NGSO FSS allocation: Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Gambia, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Lebanon, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Suriname, Thailand, Ukraine, Uruguay, the United States and Viet Nam. Cameroon, Israel, New Zealand, Senegal and South Korea spoke in support of the allocation during the conference. Japan also played a positive role in the result.

Backed by telecommunications pioneer Craig McCaw and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, the Teledesic Network will provide two-way, broadband network connections through service partners in host countries worldwide. In March, Teledesic became the first company to be licensed by the FCC to build, launch and operate a global, broadband satellite communications network. In April, Teledesic named The Boeing Company the prime contractor for the design, construction and launch of the Teledesic Network. Service is targeted to begin in 2002.

The World Radiocommunication Conference operates under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations organization based in Geneva. The ITU has 188 member countries, of which 142 attended this year's conference.

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