NileSat’s MD Salah Hamza is blaming a “major institution”, and not individuals, for the heavy bout of satellite jamming being suffered by Middle East and European satellite operators.

Speaking on Egypt’s ‘Good Morning Egypt’ TV show on Channel 1 on November 26th, Hamza said the jamming was being tackled and analysed in order to locate the source of interference, noting that this process might take “one or two days”.

BBC Monitoring, reporting the story, says Hamza added that the source of interference came from a “big institution” and was most probably an “immobile” source. “We have emphasised that the interference came from an outside [transmission] station, but we cannot make sure whether this was for political or technical reasons,” he said.

“We have been suffering from this problem for four years and want to prevent this interference via international agreements,” Hamzah said. He added that his company was strengthening transmission to overcome this jamming, but all these attempts were useless because the “interfering signal was stronger”.

He noted that the jamming must have been come from a “big satellite [up-link dish] of up to nine metres radius”, suggesting that no private individual could own such a dish.

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