Satellite Industry Defends Spectrum Use
The Satellite Industry Association was critical of suggestions by the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association and others that it said would “harm current and future satellite operations,” in comments filed Friday with the FCC. The comments were made in response to the commission’s public notice on broadband spectrum allocation. WISPA suggested limits on earth station operations.
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“Well-settled policy” has allowed grandfathered earth stations and terrestrial operations in the extended C-band since 2000, when the FCC decided how the spectrum could best be used for communications services, the SIA said in its comments. The earth stations, protected from terrestrial interference within a 150 km zone, provide essential communications, the group said, and WISPA ignores that in its suggestions to increase power density limits and decrease fixed satellite services coordination zones. The commission has rejected higher-power density limits and had considered “antenna orientations, terrain obstructions and other facts” when it set the coordination zone, it said.
WISPA’s suggestion that a “safe harbor” interference standard should replace the requirement for terrestrial operations to coordinate within 150 km of the earth stations isn’t workable, the SIA said. And a safe-harbor standard wouldn’t deal with worries about “aggregate interference by multiple terrestrial operators -- which is of great concern to satellite operators,” the association said.
The Satellite Users Interference Reduction Group also asked the FCC to ignore WISPA’s request to revamp service rules in the 3650-3700 MHz band. Further relaxing limits on broadband wireless-access operations in the band would compound current interference problems for FSS C-band operations, the group said. Regulatory stability in the C band is needed to ensure that satellites that cost hundreds of millions of dollars in upfront investment can remain in use throughout their lives, it said.
The commission will need to adopt more flexible services rules that will lead to efficient spectrum use, Dish Network and EchoStar Satellite Services said in joint comments. The companies plan to offer broadband, they said. Mixing delivery methods combining the strong points of different technologies will be necessary for maximum spectrum efficiency, and the FCC will need to relax service rules to accommodate hybrid devices, the companies said. The commission should set aside terrestrial spectrum for new entrants to foster competition, they said. The FCC and the NTIA should study whether parts of the 1755-1850 MHz block allocated to the U.S. government could be used for commercial ventures, the companies said. They echoed the SIA’s recent comments that satellite spectrum isn’t an appropriate source of spectrum for new terrestrial allocations (Oct 27 p12).
TerreStar said hybrid satellite-terrestrial service is the best use of the mobile satellite services portion of the 2 GHz band, and that conclusion shouldn’t be reconsidered by the FCC, as MetroPCS and Sprint Nextel recommend in their comments. The commission should “be wary of advocacy that blurs the significant differences between technologies and business plans and the impact that those fundamentals have on thresholds of utilization and efficient use of spectrum, the company said of the MetroPCS and Sprint comments.