EchoStar’s purchase of Hughes could lead to a policy shift by the second company on the Universal Service revamp because the acquiree has voiced different positions on the issue from the acquirer, FCC filings show. Hughes, which has previously said satellite broadband should be left out of the USF and Connect America fund, could change its position if EchoStar takes over. A united satellite broadband front would “be a big positive for the industry and provide a very strong response to the FCC” General Counsel Lisa Scalpone of WildBlue said in an interview.
Mobile satellite service operators have widely disparate views on the evolution of the MSS industry, CEOs said on a panel at the Satellite 2011 conference in Washington on Wednesday. Each of the companies pointed to different visions they said would drive growth in the industry.
Increased integration of satellite and terrestrial services appears to be the next step for satellite companies, satellite industry CEOs said Tuesday on a Satellite 2011 conference panel in Washington, D.C.
Mobile satellite service satellites and spectrum could end up in the hands of the major wireless players after MSS companies move through their bankruptcies, said several panelists at the Satellite 2011 conference in Washington. The panelists showed a reticence to predict who will end up with the MSS assets, but many pointed to the wireless players as a logical end, due in part to the FCC’s focus on making that spectrum available for terrestrial use.
Recent GPS industry efforts to drum up support and interest in the LightSquared proceeding aren’t expected to hurt the LightSquared working group process, said LightSquared’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs Jeff Carlisle in an interview. GPS interests announced Thursday they would form a new group to increase awareness of potential interference problems and a Trimble Navigation executive will take up the issue in Congressional testimony Friday (CD March 10 p7).
The GPS industry is taking its concerns of interference due to LightSquared’s planned wireless network to Capitol Hill. Trimble Navigation General Counsel Jim Kirkland will testify at House Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee Friday with a focus on the LightSquared issue, he said in an interview. Kirkland, along with Garmin, is also helping organize a new ad hoc group called the Coalition to Save Our GPS. Several companies, groups and federal agencies have voiced worries that LightSquared’s proposed service would harm GPS services. LightSquared is in the process of addressing these concerns along with the U.S. GPS Industry Council in a working group, as required by the FCC.
Harbinger Capital Partners and Solus Alternative Asset Management are seeking to buy bankrupt S-band licensees TerreStar and DBSD for $2.6 billion, said bankruptcy court filings late Tuesday. The offer hasn’t been finalized and was made through a bidder letter Monday. The bid led to further delay of a bankruptcy court decision on whether to accept Dish Network’s $1 billion offer for DBSD (CD Feb 2 p8). The bankruptcy judge, expected to rule on Dish’s plan Wednesday, would have to approve either transaction, and the FCC probably would, too. Acquiring the companies would give Harbinger, which owns LightSquared, access to an additional 40 MHz of S-band spectrum as it continues to try to build out a wireless network in the L-band. LightSquared has recently run into GPS spectrum interference concerns over the use of its L-band spectrum.
The FCC International Bureau overstepped its authority in granting the LightSquared a waiver of mobile satellite service rules that will allow it to offer terrestrial-only service through resellers, companies and groups said in filings at the FCC. Applications for review and a petition for reconsideration were filed. Requests for review are largely focused on alleged procedural problems. Meanwhile, LightSquared submitted its first working group structure report to the FCC. LightSquared was required to create working group to address GPS interference concerns and submit reports to the agency as a condition of the waiver (CD Jan 27 p1).
Dish Network’s recent S-band acquisition efforts aren’t part of “a grand strategy at this point,” said Dish CEO Charlie Ergen during its Q4 conference call Thursday. Dish recently agreed to buy bankrupt S-band licensee DBSD, though the deal still needs bankruptcy court approval. “I think spectrum has value,” Ergen said. Using that spectrum and acquiring more spectrum that fits together are both ways to increase the value of that spectrum, he said. The recent acquisition efforts have raised speculation among analysts that Ergen is planning a wireless network and/or seeking new ways to complement the core DBS business with Internet-delivered programming.
With fervent support from members of Congress, state legislators, local government leaders and public interest groups, “targeted reforms” of the system of designated market areas (DMAs) face “significant opposition” only “from the broadcasters,” Dish Network said in reply comments filed at the FCC. The NAB offers “unsupported doomsday scenarios” about the results of changes that “falsely equate improvements to the system” with “outright abandonment,” Dish said. Allowing a statewide license that would permit TV providers to provide in-state broadcast stations to “orphan counties” would be an “incremental” change that would deal with problems without disturbing the market, the company said. Dish was responding to the Media Bureau’s request for comments on in-state local broadcast programming information and ways to resolve the problem of orphan counties, those at least partly outside the borders of a designated market area. The bureau is putting together a report on the issue that will be provided to Congress by Aug. 27 under the Satellite TV Extension and Localism Act.