Russia is causing trouble in space by deliberately sending strong signals to interfere with European satellite networks, and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is demanding an end to the harmful radio emissions aimed at drowning out Ukrainian TV and radio broadcasts.
The ITU, which was originally formed in 1865 and is now a United Nations agency responsible for information and communications technologies, held its 96th meeting of the Radio Regulation Board (RRB) in Geneva, Switzerland, last month, at which complaints against Russia were laid.
Satellite administrations of Luxembourg, Sweden, France, Ukraine and the Netherlands all complained that Russia is trying to drown out their satellite networks, which include EUTELSAT and Sirius.
The Russians are said to do so by using high powered unmodulated carriers, and replicated multiplexing signals to replace the original content.
Russia is targeting Ukrainian satellite broadcasts with its interference attempts, the ITU RRB noted.
"The harmful interference had affected specific channels predominantly carrying Ukrainian television and radio programming, but also channels of the Administration of the Netherlands, and had occurred repeatedly," the ITU RRB said.
In strong words, the RRB condemned Russia's intentional signals interference of satellites.
"The Board expressed its grave concern regarding the use of signals to cause intentional harmful interference to the radiocommunication services of another administration and condemned such actions in the strictest terms, indicating that such behaviour was in direct contravention of No. 15.1 of the Radio Regulations."
"Furthermore, the Board viewed the deliberate actions to cause harmful interference to the French and Swedish satellite networks in the 13/14 GHz and 18 GHz frequency ranges, which seemed to originate from earth station(s) located in the areas of Moscow, Kaliningrad and Pavlovka, as extremely worrisome and unacceptable," the ITU RRB wrote [pdf].
The interference is ongoing, and the ITU said it had received no response from Russia. France however did get a reply to a complaint, with Russia saying its monitoring could not detect any emission that could cause harmful interference of the French satellite networks.
ITU's RRB has now requested that the Russian administration stop the deliberate action to cause harmful interference to other satellite networks.
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