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An FCC order released last week affirmed the agency’s authority t...

An FCC order released last week affirmed the agency’s authority to auction DBS spectrum. The Commission declined to adopt eligibility restrictions for licenses at 175 degrees W, 166 degrees W, and 157 degrees W and deferred a decision on…

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eligibility at 61.5 degrees W. A decision on the available licenses at 61.5 degreesW will be included in a pending Wireless Bureau announcement on the auction. The bureau postponed auction 52 in June pending the decision (CD June 13 p11). When the Commission asked for comments on the pending DBS auction, it said prior decisions to adopt the ORBIT Act and DISCO 1 (which allowed U.S. satellite licensees to serve non-U.S. locations), did not prohibit it from conducting the auction. Northpoint filed comments that contended DBS was an international or global service, not “incidentally international.” The Commission said Northpoint claimed that the “conclusion that DBS is not an international or global satellite communications service subject to the ORBIT Act represents a ‘dramatic and unexplained reversal’ of Commission policy.” The FCC said the DBS licenses were assigned to the U.S. for providing a domestic service. “None of Northpoint’s arguments changes the fact that the channels and orbit locations we plan to license by auction were assigned to the U.S. because of their coverage of the U.S. alone… [or] that the licenses to be included… must be used to provide a service delivered almost exclusively to U.S. consumers,” the Commission said. It dismissed all of Northpoint’s arguments as without merit, including the assertion that certain scenarios would allow DBS licenses to provide international service. The Commission took issue with Northpoint’s characterization of the FCC’s concept of DBS as a “truly” international satellite communications service in DISCO 1: “Rather, in DISCO 1, the Commission concluded that it should not impose regulatory barriers on a licensee interested in providing DBS service outside the U.S. Specifically, DISCO 1 permitted DBS licensees to provide both domestic and international service without obtaining additional approval from the Commission.” There was no comment on the Western licenses at 175 degrees W, 166 degrees W, and 157 degrees W, the agency said.