Tim Warren

Universal Service Fund revamp legislation recently introduced by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. (CD July 23 p1) doesn’t offer much for satellite broadband providers, said industry executives. The legislation, which would create a fund to help extend Internet to the most rural regions, leaves out the technology that could expand broadband the furthest at the lowest cost, they contend.

The FCC International Bureau’s decision to decline EchoStar’s application for a new C-band satellite on the basis of a pattern of speculative applications (CD July 30 p9) was a surprisingly strict move by the bureau, said satellite industry executives. While the bureau’s decision limits the number of applications the company can file, it remains unclear how it will affect its bottom line, the company said. EchoStar will respond to the action within the next month, it said. It’s thought to be the first time the bureau had used the rule as the basis for declining an application, the executives said.

British Sky Broadcasting will begin to offer its first 3D channel, 3D Sky, in October, the company said Thursday. The channel won’t require a set-top box upgrade and will be free to BSkyB customers already subscribed to the company’s top HD and channels package, it said. The immediate financial effect on the U.K. direct broadcast satellite provider remains unclear, CEO Jeremy Darroch said on an earnings teleconference.

The FCC and/or Congress may have to address a law that prohibits the FCC from using competitive bidding for satellite spectrum before moving forward on mobile satellite service incentive auctions, said industry executives and the NTIA. The Open-market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications (ORBIT) Act of 2000 outlawed such auctions to facilitate international coordination of satellite spectrum. While the spectrum in question refers to the reuse of satellite spectrum terrestrially, a 2005 lawsuit on somewhat similar reuse concluded the Act’s language is ambiguous on the auction of the spectrum, officials said. The FCC recently opened a proceeding on how best to encourage mobile broadband investment in the MSS bands, through incentive auctions and other means (CD July 16 p1).

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) will build and run a 4G network for Harbinger Capital Partners and its SkyTerra unit, under an eight-year, $7 billion agreement, the companies said Tuesday. The new business, called LightSquared, said it will offer wholesale terrestrial-only, satellite-only and combined satellite-terrestrial services starting in the second half of 2011. The agreement is a major step toward using largely undeveloped spectrum allocated for satellite companies at the terrestrial level, and it could mean an important new customer for tower owners, analysts said. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski lauded the agreement as an industry endorsement of the commission’s efforts on broadband spectrum.

Dish Network’s request for a preliminary injunction that would block a federal statute requiring the direct broadcast satellite service carry significantly more public TV programming in HD fails to meet the necessary criteria, the Department of Justice said in opposing the request. Dish is suing the FCC as the enforcer of the law passed by Congress in May as part of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010 (STELA) (CD May 13 p2). Dish said the statute violates the company’s First Amendment rights by requiring carriage of certain programming. Per the statute, Dish must reach an agreement with public TV stations for carrying the HD programming by July 27 or face an accelerated schedule to add those broadcasters’ streams in that format.

The FCC voted to loosen rules in the 2 GHz band allocated to mobile satellite services Thursday, opening the process toward making MSS spectrum more accessible for terrestrial broadband. The rulemaking also would make MSS spectrum fall within secondary market spectrum leasing policies already in place in other bands. A separate notice of inquiry adopted Thursday focuses on eliciting investment in MSS spectrum and how to handle the increased value of the spectrum. The proceedings are part of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan.

The 1675-1710 MHz band is widely and constantly used by federal and non-federal users, and opening it to wireless broadband users could jeopardize important public safety and meteorological connectivity, Raytheon told the FCC. The company responded to an Office of Engineering & Technology notice requesting input on using the band for wireless broadband (CD June 1 p1). While the public notice said the agency believed the band to be “relatively lightly used, both geographically and temporally, and thus could be shared by others,” several disagreed.

Wireless Strategies and the FCC Wireless Bureau need to answer several questions on the effect of distributed radiating elements on satellite communications before the agency moves forward on a rulemaking on the subject, the Satellite Industry Association said in a filing on WSI’s proposal on DREs. WSI proposed deploying DREs as a way to increase reuse of microwave frequencies in 2007. The proposal saw new light recently when it was referenced in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. The bureau is preparing to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking to make changes to part 101 of the FCC’s rules which govern fixed microwave services and has sought some industry input before moving forward, the SIA said in a filing. The association has met with the International Bureau and the Office of the Engineering and Technology in recent months to voice its concerns on the issue.

The FCC left the door open to further action on complaints of a dysfunctional fixed-satellite services (FSS) marketplace, in its report to Congress on the Open-Market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications (ORBIT) Act. The report referenced Globecomm, Artel, CapRock, and Spacenet’s filings saying the FSS market is flawed and Intelsat uses anticompetitive behavior to win contracts and dictate leasing prices, but the report doesn’t propose any specific action. The ORBIT Act requires the FCC to provide annual reports to the House and Senate Commerce and Foreign Relations committees on the effect of the privatization of Intelsat and Inmarsat.