Coming MSS Order Expected to Help S-band Licensees
The FCC seems ready to add secondary market spectrum leasing rules for terrestrial use in bands currently allocated for mobile satellite service, said agency officials and industry executives. A report and order, which are on circulation, are largely in line with the FCC’s rulemaking proposal from last year (CD July 7 p1), they said. The agency’s notice of inquiry on MSS -- which asked for input on various ways to increase terrestrial use of the MSS bands, including incentive auctions -- will be taken up later, said satellite industry executives. The order will also grant terrestrial use as a co-primary allocation in the S-band, said industry executives.
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The changes are of particular importance to TerreStar and DBSD, both S-band licensees in bankruptcy, industry analysts have said (CD Jan 7 p12). But the order wouldn’t loosen MSS/ancillary terrestrial component gating criteria, a change sought by several MSS companies. The order hasn’t been voted on by all the FCC commissioners, but it’s mostly uncontentious and is expected to be moved on relatively soon, said agency officials.
The MSS item will give DBSD and TerreStar much-needed extra time to come up with their own deals for spectrum use after emerging from bankruptcy, said Tim Farrar, president of Telecom, Media and Finance Associates. “Instead of a generic [FCC] solution, the order gives them bit more time to come up with specific requests of their own,” he said. The FCC can try to move forward on incentive auctions for the band if deals with the S-band licensees don’t emerge, he said. Such auctions would need approval from Congress.
Meanwhile, a modification application that could allow LightSquared to offer terrestrial-only service in spectrum allocated for MSS is being worked on on a track separate from the coming order, said the FCC officials. The application, which the NTIA recently voiced reservations about (CD Jan 13 p3), isn’t expected to be taken up right away, said the executives.