Repurposed S-band May Be Positive for Satellite Industry, Executives Say
The S-band spectrum allocated to mobile satellite service is largely expected to be lost as a primarily satellite band, satellite industry executives and lawyers said. The FCC proceeding involved isn’t a major source of interest to companies outside the bands, and there’s little concern over other domestic repurposing of satellite spectrum, they said.
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With S-band licensees TerreStar and DBSD in bankruptcy, the reallocation of the spectrum may be positive for the industry, said satellite executives within and outside the MSS industry. The focus on satellite companies as holders of largely unused spectrum and as obstacles to wider broadband use hurts the industry’s image as a whole, they said. Incentive auctions to get licensees to trade in their spectrum in return for a percentage of auction proceeds are considered likely, since licensees have kept up with milestone requirements and the FCC would have a hard time taking the spectrum away, they said. An FCC official doesn’t expect agency action on the MSS spectrum for at least a year.
The FCC has proposed new rules for the S-band, making the terrestrial spectrum co-primary with satellite spectrum and adding existing spectrum leasing rules to the band. FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker also recently advocated making that spectrum ready for 4G use (CD Oct 20 p2). The agency has also started an inquiry into increasing ground-based broadband use in other MSS bands, L-band and Big Low Earth Orbit. Those bands are expected to be mostly untouched in terms of spectrum priority, though gating criteria may be relaxed, executives said. Currently, MSS/ancillary terrestrial component licensees are required to have a spare satellite on the ground and handsets able to communicate with terrestrial and satellite networks. Both requirements have been raised in comments on challenges to terrestrial use in the bands.
Not everyone assumes the 2 GHz band to be gone for satellite uses. Although the S-band licensees have had trouble getting a business going, there’s still “a lot of value” in the prospect of a phone that is able to switch between terrestrial service and satellite service, said John Hane, a lawyer at Pillsbury Winthrop who has worked with MSS companies. An everyday phone that can connect anywhere -- and “not a special device just there for emergencies” -- that people know how to use and will be regularly recharged is a valuable prospect, he said. While there have been hiccups, many satellite enterprises, including DBS, had trouble before becoming going businesses, said Hane. Just because something has failed before “has no bearing at all on whether it will be successful or a failure in 2014,” he said. “Don’t write any of the MSS businesses off just yet.” LightSquared, required by the FCC to build out to 92 percent of the population by 2015, is considered a template for the 2 GHz band, leaving a small slice solely for satellite service, said another industry lawyer.
Intelsat is far more focused on international efforts to repurpose FSS spectrum than on the MSS proceeding, said Phil Spector, Intelsat’s general counsel. Intelsat and others have fought off proposals at the ITU that would increase sharing of C-band spectrum, he said. The company isn’t particularly bothered by the prospect of the MSS spectrum going to terrestrial services rather than remaining available for satellite uses, since Intelsat isn’t looking to acquire spectrum, he said.
The problems in the S-band are “in no way a reflection on the potential market for mobile satellite broadband, especially using different frequencies and technologies,” said WildBlue General Counsel Lisa Scalpone. “We think mobile broadband using satellite has huge growth potential, such as use of the Ka-Band for aviation.”
Scalpone doesn’t expect any effort to take Ka-band spectrum, since the FCC’s focus has been on spectrum under 3 GHz while “most satellite bands are in higher frequency ranges,” she said. “While we watch with interest and agree that hybrid networks could offer some interesting possibilities, we don’t think that the move to free up spectrum for wireless would adversely affect [WildBlue’s spectrum], which already are heavily used for satellite purposes. Moreover, the ATC bands offer only a very small fraction of the amount of spectrum used by WildBlue today."
While some non-MSS satellite companies aren’t paying a lot of attention to the proceeding, “maybe they should be,” said another satellite industry lawyer. Given the FCC’s recent appetite for find spectrum, “where does it stop?” the lawyer asked. Whoever ends up with the S-band spectrum may be forced to offer some limited satellite service due in part to the inability to unload S-band satellites. Although there are S-band users in Europe, it would be very difficult to transition the satellites to another region, said another satellite industry executive.