Big Changes to NGSO Sharing Draft Order Considered Unlikely
The FCC isn't expected to make big changes to the non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) spectrum sharing order on the agenda for commissioners' April meeting (see 2303290068), a satellite executive told us. There were strong disagreements over such items as sunsetting interference protections of earlier-round NGSO systems, and that kept up in lobbying by some satellite operators in recent days.
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The FCC also floated six- and 15-year sunsets in the NGSO sharing NPRM. The draft order opts for 10 years. Ten years "appropriately balances the need for stability for incumbent operations and the possibility for new entrants to compete on an equal footing once they have built out their systems," the agency said in the draft order. The draft also says NGSO fixed satellite service operators "must engage in good faith when discussing and accommodating the shared use of spectrum with other NGSO FSS operators," with failure to do so possibly resulting in monetary forfeitures or loss of an authorization. It also says if an earlier-round system starts operations after a later-round one, the later-round licensee has to submit a certification of coordination or compatibility with the earlier-round system.
Michael Calabrese, New America's Wireless Future Project director, applauded the intensive satellite spectrum sharing regime the order sets up. With the required good-faith coordination among incumbent and new entrant NGSOs, the use of the degraded throughput metric for measuring interference and the promised enforcement of good-faith coordination, "this is a good first step in addressing our concern that by giving first-round entrants priority, the Commission is giving incumbent operators an incentive to refuse to coordinate," he emailed. "Going forward, we will push the FCC to adopt a robust version of the degraded throughput metric, as well as specific information sharing requirements to encourage more market entry, efficient sharing and competition.”
The draft order is a mixed bag, with some disappointments, particularly a lack of real guidelines for good-faith coordination or clearly robust enforcement mechanisms, said Public Knowledge policy counsel Kathleen Burke. A 10-year sunset is "kind of long" given the lifespan of satellites, she said. Satellite systems should be able to recoup their costs well before 10 years, she said. The agency's NGSO spectrum sharing approach seems to leave the door open to trying out different sharing models, which could be instructive, she said.
The NGSO spectrum sharing draft order should create stronger incentives and more requirements for information sharing in the name of coordination, representatives from Amazon's Kuiper told the offices of Commissioners Brendan Carr, Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington, plus agency staffers, per docket 21-456 postings this week. Kuiper said the 10-year interference protection sunset in the draft order protects incumbents from competition too long and urged it be shortened.
If the agency is going to adopt sunsets, they should be 15 years after the first authorization or market access grant, OneWeb representatives told aides to Carr and Starks and an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. It said 10 years means many systems from the first Ka-band processing round would get little to no protection from interference after second-round grantees are fully deployed, with many of those second-round grants still pending. Fifteen years lines up with the current 15-year license term for NGSO constellations and geostationary orbit networks, it said. OneWeb told an aide to Commissioner Nathan Simington and agency staff that sunsets will upset the expectations of investors "who have already invested billions of dollars and have contractually committed to billions more under the current regulatory regime and led the world in innovation by expanding connectivity around the globe."
SpaceX urged the agency to seek comment on items where it said the record was lacking: how to improve the procedures for interim noninterference showing, and ways of ensuring satellite operators use spectrum efficiently, in meetings with all the commissioners. It said the draft order's proposed rule requiring later-round systems to submit an interim compatibility showing has no record of support and "would have serious unintended consequences by freezing coordination between operators across processing rounds." It said a lack of incentives to use spectrum efficiently could result in earlier-round systems designing their systems to limit spectrum available for new entrants.