C-Band Transition on Track but Faces Some Pandemic Delays, Say Intelsat, SES
Both Intelsat and SES say C-band clearing efforts are underway and meeting deadlines, though both warned of some COVID-19 pandemic-related supply chain issues, in their first quarterly C-band clearing status reports. "We remain on track and in some cases ahead…
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of ... schedule," SES said Wednesday in docket 18-122. It said it has ordered "nearly all" the filters needed for Phase I of the clearing, and "a large portion" of Phase I satellite service transitions are done. It said some component suppliers have informed two of its satellite manufacturers about likely component delivery delays due to COVID-19 infections in their facility or elsewhere in the supply chain. It said two customers also warned of "slight delays" in satellite service transitions at their uplinks due to COVID-19 restrictions or infections. It said forecasted delivery dates for new satellites "remain on track." It said its primary incumbent earth station equipment installation vendor, USSI, has been contacting incumbent operators, identifying the needs of each site and the quantity and configuration of antennas accessing SES satellites. Despite some pandemic-related supply chain issues, the contracted delivery dates for all seven replacement satellites are on target, Intelsat said. It said it completed some customer transitions, and four are on track to be done by month's end. It said all the equipment for technology upgrades to be done in Phase I of the clearing has been ordered, and hardware installation at earth stations has started. Intelsat said thousands of integrated receiver/decoders were delivered to earth stations. It said it has roughly 5,000 IRDs in inventory and has ordered over 21,000. It said most Phase I earth station transition and remediation work is expected to happen in Q2 and Q3 2021, and it began passband filters at those incumbent earth stations where their programming was migrated or already resides above 3820 MHz.