DIRECTV AND ECHOSTAR DON'T WANT SES IN DBS MARKET
SES Americom is “trying to sneak in the back door” by using license granted by Gibraltar to place DBS satellite at orbital location that wouldn’t be permitted if license were authorized by FCC, DirecTV Pres. Roxanne Austin said. Citing possibility of interference to DBS subscribers, DirecTV and EchoStar filed opposition at FCC to SES application to launch satellite for competitive DBS service(CD April 26 p3). “Our opposition to SES Americom’s FCC petition isn’t about competition -- we welcome the competition -- it’s about interference,” Austin said. Proposed DBS service offered by SES at 105.5 degrees would cause customers to “suffer significant service interruptions and impede our ability to deliver local channels,” she said. DirecTV said SES satellites would be only 4.5 degrees from DirecTV satellites at 101 degrees and 110 degrees, which would violate 9 degrees spacing established by ITU and FCC.
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DirecTV called SES application “procedurally defective, substantively unworkable, gravely detrimental” to U.S. DBS industry. Filing said SES satellite design appeared to be nothing more than gerrymandered paper construct specifically intended to avoid triggering international coordination obligations with U.S. DBS satellites. FCC consideration of SES application is premature, DirecTV said, because SES USAT- S1 satellite hasn’t been designed, constructed or launched and company has only preliminary teleport facility license from Gibralter to perform telemetry, tracking and control. Application should be shelved until SES receives license from U.K. or Gibralter, it said.
EchoStar and DirecTV comments “have a strong element of crying wolf,” said SES attorney Phil Spector: “These are parties who have said several times in the past that new technologies competing with them would cause interference. In each case, their cries of wolf have been false alarms. That is certainly the case here.” Spector had said earlier he didn’t expect strong opposition from DirecTV or EchoStar because of pending merger and willingness of SES to resolve interference issues. SES asked to meet with EchoStar and DirecTV last month, but Spector said DBS companies declined: “They have refused to talk to us.” SES has been among companies that filed opposition to New EchoStar 4 satellite at FCC.
SES received support in filings from Astrium, Hawaii, Lockheed Martin, Marsh Insurance Brokers, National Action Network (NAN), National Assn. of Black Organizations (NABO), NBC, NRTC,, Orbital Sciences, Pegasus, Primera Communications, Qualcomm, Spacenet, Word Network. Alaska conditioned its support on assurance that geographic service rules be enforced. SES has asked for waiver of rules in Alaska later. Most filing in support of SES have been actively opposing EchoStar takeover of DirecTV.
Pegasus said new DBS competition was needed as long as it didn’t produce interference. Commission should “focus immediately on this threshold technical issue and defer until later consideration of the proper process for licensing,” it said. NRTC agreed interference was major issue, but took no position on whether “SES’s attempt to short-space satellite licensed by Gibralter between 2 U.S. orbital slots (101 degrees and 110 degrees W) is technically feasible and can overcome existing domestic and international regulatory hurdles.” SES shouldn’t be considered possible competitor to EchoStar and DirecTV because it wouldn’t provide substantial impact within 2-year time frame under merger guidelines, NRTC said. Nevertheless, SES “provides new and less intrusive alternative” to EchoStar and DirecTV that contend they need takeover to gain spectrum for more services, it said.
Lockheed Martin said SES proposal would require coordination agreements by U.K., U.S. and ITU, but new service would provide competition and other benefits. NBC said competition from SES could lead to lower prices for transmission capacity and direct-to-home services along with additional sources of programming. Orbital and Marsh said SES was important to growth of satellite industry. Spacenet said SES would provide niche programmers and ethnic broadcasters with additional outlet. Primera said SES would help relieve “scarcity in channel space” through current cable and DBS operators that had resulted in “closed platform” services, limiting opportunities for start-up programmers offering ethnic and foreign language services.
Civil rights organizations NAN and NABO in joint filing expressed “deep concern that content monopoly by a shrinking number of cable TV and DBS providers threatens the diversity of programming options… When exclusion occurs, it most often affects a growing number of minority and special interest networks.”