The Satellite Bcstg. & Communications Assn. (SBCA) told Congress ...

recent letter to Sen. McCain (R- Ariz.) gave information about who would benefit if Northpoint received spectrum outside of an auction. McCain later said the letter didn’t provide the requested information (CD Oct 30 p13). SBCA said Northpoint had argued repeatedly that it applied for spectrum at the same time as Hughes, but only Hughes would receive the spectrum without auction. SBCA said the statement was false: “The applications mentioned by Northpoint were not for the provision of DBS service and have, in fact, been withdrawn, meaning that Hughes will never ‘receive’ any ‘licenses’.” While certain licenses have been granted without auction, SBCA said the 500-license figure cited by Northpoint was “improperly inflated” because it included FSS applications that Northpoint wouldn’t compete against. Northpoint cited a prohibition on auctions for completely different satellite services to make its point, SBCA said, but didn’t “mention the many examples of terrestrial services like its own planned service, such as the wireless cable providers that already compete in the multichannel video program distributor (MVPD) market.” While Northpoint has cited reports claiming consumer savings of $2.78 billion annually with additional multichannel video distribution and data service (MVDDS) competition, SBCA said, it doesn’t explain why those benefits aren’t already realized through existing wireless cable services such as local multipoint distribution services (LMDS) and multichannel multipoint distribution services (MMDS). “The satellite TV industry has never opposed the emergence of these services for the simple reason that they posed no risk of electrical interference into its DBS service… Nevertheless… wireless cable has not been economically viable.” Separately, a Northpoint said EchoStar was increasing its capacity and avoiding auctions in a “crafty way” by placing programming on SES Americom’s AMC-2, an FSS satellite: “It is particularly curious that SBCA claims we misled you on the grounds that many of the 500 nonauctioned satellite licenses we cite are FSS licenses, when EchoStar is now using an FSS satellite to provide DBS service to consumers today.”