The future of Globalstar's broadband terrestrial low-power broadband system plans remains hazy, with Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn still not having decided on the draft order circulated by Chairman Tom Wheeler. "As soon as I come to a conclusion, we'll see how it goes," O'Rielly said Thursday at the agency's meeting. An FCC official told us Clyburn hasn't voted. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel had voted no (see 1606030041). Globalstar didn't comment.
The Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) almost certainly will get out of the business of space traffic management, said Benjamin Roberts, assistant director-civil and commercial space at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. With the Federal Aviation Administration almost surely picking up the space traffic cop job, the key issue is how all that will shake out, he said Thursday at Future Space 2016 during a series of talks about the state of space debris management. The new oversight should come with new technologies and capabilities built in and not just a transfer of the status quo from one body to another, Roberts said.
MVPDs and allies were dismayed Thursday as Chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC was wrapping up its look at possible changes to the totality of circumstances test in good-faith retransmission negotiations without making any rules changes. Multichannel video programming distributors had assumed the agency would end up making some meaningful rules changes. They were tentatively expected as soon as August's agenda, one cable industry lawyer told us, saying the decision came as complete surprise.
A public notice on OneWeb's planned 720-satellite constellation could be issued as soon as this month, an FCC official told us, with the agency also working on a variety of satellite rulemaking that could follow later this year and in 2017. Satellite Industry Association President Tom Stroup said he had heard similarly from the agency, though nothing in recent weeks.
The debate over 5G and fixed satellite service sharing of the 28 GHz band increasingly involves power flux density (PFD) and proposed limits on that measure of signal power level at the receiver. "As long as you will be sharing spectrum between satellite and terrestrial systems, this is the issue," Farooq Khan, CEO of 5G technology company Phazr, told us. "The back and forth over precise technical limits on power is entirely normal," satellite industry consultant Tim Farrar told us in an email, pointing to such issues as the Globalstar/Wi-Fi in 5 GHz or the GPS industry's past challenges to Ligado. "I'd expect the FCC to be leaning in favor of terrestrial interests because that is the political priority."
Cable and satellite interests are sparring over an FCC-proposed hike in the per-subscriber direct broadcast satellite regulatory fee from 12 to 27 cents per subscriber. The higher DBS fee would mean "a more equitable distribution of the burden" of paying for Media Bureau regulatory staff, American Cable Association said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 16-166. But Dish Network in its own filing posted Wednesday said assertions that DBS should pay the same regulatory fees as cable and IPTV lack legal basis.
The 37.5-40 GHz bandwidth is in a growing tug of war between 5G proponents and satellite operators. While Boeing in a white paper is pushing for spectrum sharing with satellite services in the V-band, including 37.5-40 GHz, CTIA in an email to us questioned the company's "newfound interest in this spectrum," coming days after the FCC issued its spectrum frontiers NPRM white copy (see 1606240026). CTIA said the Boeing white paper is "merely their attempt to seek delay and elevated rights, rather than to provide service for Americans. We are confident the FCC will see through their eleventh-hour proposal intended to delay and will move forward quickly to make available the high band spectrum that fuels our 5G mobile leadership.”
Tennis Channel was "misplaced" in its focus on federal code for judicial review of FCC orders, the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Tuesday, rejecting the channel's petition for review of the FCC's 2015 decision (see 1501280059) not to reopen Tennis Channel's carriage complaint against Comcast. Communications Act Section 402(h) merely requires the agency to carry out court decisions and doesn't require courts to remand proceedings for further review and fact-finding if they find any agency's reasons deficient, the D.C. Circuit said in its 12-page opinion (in Pacer). It said the FCC conducted proceedings consistent with the court's grant of Comcast's petition for review, and thus satisfied its obligations.
The FCC under Chairman Tom Wheeler has been remarkably quick and responsive on making spectrum available for 5G, a differentiator that will make the U.S. the global leader in deployment, 5G advocates said Thursday during Information Technology and Innovation Foundation panel. "The U.S. is going to lead because of the FCC," said Peter Pitsch, Intel executive director-communications policy. He said South Korea, Japan and China are considering 5G trials because they and other nations are "looking at the fact the commission is moving so quickly on allocation and assignment." Qualcomm Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Dean Brenner, pointing to recent speeches by Wheeler (see 1606200044) and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly (see 1606270082), said the agency's consensus on 5G is notable "in an era when everything is partisan."
The satellite industry still hopes for changes in the FCC spectrum frontiers draft order to give it co-primary status in the 28 GHz band with wireless 5G operators and to tackle aggregate interference issues, industry officials told us. Co-primary status has been a major issue for satellite operators (see 1606020035). Satellite Industry Association President Tom Stroup said failure to get that could have "severe consequences" for future earth station deployments.