C-Band Reallocation Could Get DOD Opposition, SIA Says
DOD could object to reallocation of C-band spectrum for terrestrial use, given its plans to rely increasingly on commercial satcom services that employ that band, said Satellite Industry Association President Tom Stroup Tuesday, as SIA released its annual state of the satellite industry report. FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly blogged with support Monday for alternative uses of the “underutilized” 3.7-4.2 GHz band mainly used by fixed satellite services operators (see 1707100049). DOD didn't comment Tuesday.
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The call for reallocating C-band downlinks and uplinks for licensed mobile communications and unlicensed use shows a lack of understanding about how the band currently is used, Stroup said, saying it's heavily used for cable TV distribution. He said increased DOD use of commercial satcom is being done in the name of resiliency, with the Navy already distributing some traffic through a number of commercial C-band satellite systems. Stroup is disappointed that use of the C-band is challenged as the growing numbers of satellite constellations to be launched will drive up satellite industry demands for the Ka-, Ku- and V-bands.
The satellite industry globally had revenue of $260.5 billion in 2016, up 2 percent; including 2 percent for the U.S. segment, SIA said. The biggest driver was ground equipment, which was up 7 percent to $113.4 billion, SIA said. Satellite manufacturing had a 13 percent drop, to $13.9 billion, but much of that was attributable to a bottleneck in launches and to replacement cycles coming to an end, Stroup said.
The pricing pressure on satcom operators providing transponder leasing isn't going away as additional capacity is being put into orbit, Stroup told us, echoing what insiders say (see 1703060016). But he said the launch of high-throughput broadband satellites should lead to increased subscriber numbers because many operators have been capacity-constrained, he said.
Last year ended with 1,459 satellites in operation, with 35 percent of them communications satellites, SIA said. The number has increased 47 percent over the past five years, it said, saying 126 satellites were launched during 2016. The pace of launches this year has picked up, and is expected to ramp up considerably starting around 2018 or 2019, Stroup said.
Launch industry revenue for the year was $5.5 billion, up 2 percent, after a 9 percent decline in 2015, SIA said. Fourteen commercial satellite launch orders were placed last year, down from 33 in 2015, and U.S. companies captured 29 percent of that work, down from 45 percent in 2015, as ViaSat and Inmarsat shifted payloads from SpaceX to Arianespace and as SpaceX's temporary grounding (see 1702150032) moved some launches to 2017, SIA said.