August 19, 2022
The parabolic antenna—a C-band earth station facility—that had been installed for many years next to the Tau (τ) Building: Graduate School of Media and Governance Building was removed on August 3. It was a large antenna, 7.6 meters in diameter with a transmission power of 100 watts, which is rare for a private institution. (For those familiar with amateur radio, it was also assigned the call sign JC222 for international communications.)
This parabolic antenna was installed in October 1999 for demonstration experiments in research on satellite internet. It was part of a joint research project by three parties: Keio University, the Communications Research Laboratory of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (now the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology), and Japan Satellite Systems Inc. (now SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation). This joint research was named the AI3 (Asian Internet Interconnection Initiatives) Project and was led by Professor Jun Murai of Keio University.
In the AI3 project, we recruited joint research partners from universities in the Southeast Asian region, installed C-band earth station facilities at the partner institutions, and connected them to the internet with SFC. Eventually, 13 countries connected to this antenna, building a communications infrastructure that covered the entire Southeast Asian region. (Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, East Timor, Singapore, and Mongolia)
The AI3 project had three main achievements.
First, a great deal of research was conducted on satellite internet. Research and development in information and communications requires a network for demonstration experiments, known as a testbed. The AI3 network served as a testbed for satellite internet research, a rarity in the world.
Second, it contributed to the spread of the internet in the Southeast Asian region. When AI3 began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the internet boom had already arrived in Japan, but many countries in Southeast Asia were just getting started. For some countries, connecting to the internet through this antenna was the catalyst for its widespread adoption.
Third, it contributed to human resource development in the Southeast Asian region. Many of the researchers from Southeast Asia involved in AI3 became the "first generation of internet researchers" in their respective countries, playing active roles in research institutes, government agencies, and private companies, and supporting the internet in their home regions.
Although the AI3 network and its core antenna produced many achievements, the aging of the equipment necessitated its replacement or decommissioning. The decision to decommission it was influenced by the "5G interference problem." Currently, mobile phone carriers are rolling out a new standard called "5G" nationwide, and it was discovered that this antenna was hindering the introduction of 5G near SFC. This is because the radio waves used by AI3, known as the C-band, and the radio waves used for 5G have close frequencies, causing interference.
We carefully considered whether to decommission this valuable testbed network for the sake of 5G, or whether to keep it, given the vested rights to use the radio waves. In the end, we decided to prioritize 5G for the well-being of everyone at SFC and the neighboring residents.
The antenna, which produced numerous research results, supported the development of the internet in Southeast Asia, and was a long-standing symbol of SFC, quietly ended its role on August 3, during the campus's summer break. The radio waves once used for research and for Southeast Asia will now support the daily lives of everyone at SFC in the form of 5G mobile phone use.
(Yohji Watanabe, senior researcher, Keio Research Institute at SFC)
[Related Links]
ASCII.jp "C-band Satellite Internet Project and Other Cutting-Edge Research Unveiled (SFC OPEN RESEARCH FORUM 2000 Part 2)" (September 26, 2000)
Source: General Affairs Section, Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC) Office