EchoStar Gives Up Reverse Band Authorizations
EchoStar relinquished its five 17/24 GHz reverse band FCC authorizations Tuesday in an effort to rebut an FCC presumption of the company as using authorizations for speculation, FCC filings show. The surrendered authorizations are meant to clear the way at the FCC for EchoStar’s purchase of Hughes Communications, a $2 billion transaction currently being reviewed at the agency. No filings opposing the deal were made in that proceeding, though the agency did request additional satellite deployment plans in relation to the purchase, an EchoStar filing said. Although the company gave up the five authorizations, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have future plans using the reverse band, an industry executive said.
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The company surrendered its reverse band authorizations at orbital slots 62.15 degrees west, 75 degrees west, 79 degrees west, 107 degrees and 110.4 degrees west. Hughes’ Jupiter 1 satellite, which is scheduled to launch in 2012, has been a major part of Hughes’ business plans and EchoStar emphasized in an FCC filing its continued plans to finish construction and launch the satellite. EchoStar didn’t respond to a request for comment.
"In making the showing that it will carry the Jupiter 1 project to construction completion, launch, and operation … EchoStar must consider certain trade-offs,” EchoStar said in docket 11-35. The surrender “is intended to strengthen its showing that, in combination with its acquisition of Hughes, EchoStar is very likely to construct the Jupiter 1 satellite,” the filing said. EchoStar also asks that if the FCC accepts the “showing as sufficient” the agency should give EchoStar and its corporate structure a clean slate once the FCC approves the deal. EchoStar said it would also withdraw requests that bonds for previous surrendered licenses be released and withdraw a petition for reconsideration on the FCC’s dismissal of a satellite application. The filing included declarations from Hughes and EchoStar executives as proof of plans to progress with the launch and use of Jupiter 1.
The FCC International Bureau dismissed an EchoStar satellite authorization application in 2010 due to what it called the company’s pattern of missing satellite milestones. Companies that are believed to be speculative in their satellite filings are then restricted “from filing applications for new satellites until they rebut the presumption that they acquired one or more of their licenses for speculative purposes,” the FCC order said (CD July 30/10 p9).
The company also decided to give up the authorizations because it found that under ITU rules EchoStar may not have had senior priority claims on four of orbital slots in question, it said. “Proceeding further with these projects would carry the risk that satellites in which EchoStar would have invested hundreds of millions of dollars would prove incapable of meaningful operations due to the inability of the harmonious operation of the EchoStar satellite in the U.S. slots,” EchoStar said.