Inmarsat, MSV L-band Rumble Getting Louder

If the only hangup between the operators were Inmarsat’s new I 4F2 satellite and its BGAN service, the quarrels might have been resolved by now -- 7 months since the FCC fielded the lead BGAN application and years since Inmarsat began work on its Inmarsat 4 series of satellites. But the brouhaha also involves failed international spectrum negotiations, WTO obligations and the future of Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC), or terrestrial wireless, services in the band. Both operators said they want to work out their spectrum disputes, they just differ on how to do so.

“At this point, there’s been an awful lot of lobbying on both sides,” one attorney involved said: “This may be coming to a head soon.” The band is highly segmented, which both operators have said will make it hard to deploy the latest broadband technologies and ATC (CD Jan 27 p8). The Commission is said to want a new L-band coordination pact to benefit broadband; however, the L-band is unique, since several MSS operators share it under a 1996 Mexico City agreement updated in 1999. Inmarsat and MSV agree it’s time to update the pact for their new systems, but coordination efforts have failed. Inmarsat and MSV said they're both waiting for the Commission to act on BGAN and the policy issues involved, but have been told only that “it’s pending.”

Inmarsat officials say BGAN -- which provides voice and data at 492 kbps to notebook-sized terminals, at rest or in moving vehicles -- vastly improves on MSS products. BGAN is beamed from 2 new Inmarsat 4 series satellites. The I 4F1 already provides BGAN to users in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The I 4F2, operational at 52.75 degrees W, provides BGAN service to S. America, but hasn’t been switched on over the U.S. due to regulatory squabbles in the U.S. and Canada. Inmarsat has been demonstrating BGAN to U.S. agencies under an experimental license, but formal BGAN applications are pending, as are now-expired STAs for Inmarsat to provide earlier generation Inmarsat 3 services on the I 4F2. MSV has opposed them all.

MSV calls the I 4F2 a “rogue” spacecraft, since it hasn’t been “coordinated” internationally. The I 4F2 is “unlike any MSS satellite that has ever operated over North America,” MSV told the FCC. I 4F2 has wider bandwidth carriers, transmits at higher aggregate EIRP and uses more co-channel reuse beams than older L-band spacecraft like MSV’s, MSV said. Switching BGAN on in the U.S. before it is coordinated could harm existing MSV satellite services and its next-generation plans, MSV said. And permanent authority to move existing Inmarsat 3 services to the I 4F2 would “create uncertainty” for MSV, it said. The International Bureau granted STAs so Inmarsat could shift I 3 services to the new satellite, but under tight conditions. The STAs, which have expired, were automatically extended because Inmarsat has renewals pending.

The FCC should let BGAN commence by April 17, said Inmarsat resellers Stratos Communications, Telenor Satellite, FTMSC, BT Americas and MVS USA in a collective request. A mid-April BGAN launch would to give enough time “to ensure that BGAN terminals can be deployed to local, state and federal first responders, as well as to non-governmental relief organizations, and that those users can be fully trained on the use and capabilities of BGAN,” Inmarsat’s distributors said: “Various government users already have expressed significant interest in the availability of BGAN service in the United States, and this interest is expected to grow at the sate, local and federal levels.”

BGAN is a “powerful new tool that would've been helpful during Katrina and will be helpful in the upcoming hurricane season if it’s licensed by the FCC,” said Inmarsat Vp-Govt. Affairs Diane Cornell. FEMA has bought BGAN terminals, and the National Guard and U.S. Northern Command are interested in it, Cornell said. Inmarsat has pitched BGAN to a number of govt. entities, “and there’s a high level of interest,” she said, citing “some procurement action” which she said usually is confidential. “We're very concerned that [BGAN] can’t be used for first responders,” she said: “The coordination issues are going to require hard work on everybody’s part but that should not be holding up on the licensing.”

Getting a permanent STA to provide Inmarsat 3-generation services from I 4F2 is as urgent as BGAN authorization, said Telenor, an Inmarsat distributor. Telenor’s list of customers for I 3 services, filed at the FCC, includes the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, National Guard, Departments. of State and Homeland Security and the White House, plus shipping, fishing, news media and oil and gas firms. Telenor wants to use its Southbury, Conn., teleport to use I 4F2 to provide those same services under a permanent authorization, it said. “Permanent authorizations are needed to ensure continuity” of Inmarsat B, Inmarsat C, Inmarsat Mini-M and Aero Mini-M, GAN, Aero-H and H+, Aero-I and Swift services, Telenor said.

MSV, which also has thousands of public safety users, says Inmarsat’s proposed operations will harm its satellite services for federal, state and local public safety entities. While Inmarsat resellers “claim that some federal agencies have expressed interest in using BGAN terminals, many of these same federal agencies currently rely on MSV’s services and will suffer interference if Inmarsat is permitted to provide BGAN service prior to a coordination agreement,” MSV said.

MSV recently opposed Inmarsat in comments for an International Bureau report to Congress on privatization of Intelsat and Inmarsat, required by a 2005 ORBIT Act amendment. Inmarsat “continues to undercut the goals of the ORBIT Act by using shared L-band spectrum in an anti- competitive fashion… thwarting Congress’s goal of establishing a fully competitive market for satellite services,” MSV said: “Inmarsat has refused to return spectrum that MSV loaned temporarily to it, has refused to engage in re-banding L band spectrum that would allow MSV and other L band users adequate spectrum that is efficiently configured for broadband service, and has obstructed efforts to coordinate its new Inmarsat-4 satellite system.”

Inmarsat replied that “unfortunately, MSV abandoned the MoU process over six years ago,” and instead has “sought to retain for itself as much L-band spectrum as possible by attempting to use the Commission’s regulatory approval process.” Inmarsat said it called for a Mexico City MoU discussion in 2001 because of the ATC rulemaking. “Since then, both Inmarsat and the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications have urge that MSV return to the international negotiating table, but MSV consistently has ignored those requests,” Inmarsat said.

Inmarsat has indicated in many FCC filings that MSV won’t cooperate in international talks, instead always disagreeing. “Let’s look at the facts here,” MSV Vp- Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner said: “First, we loaned spectrum to Inmarsat -- they wrongfully won’t give it back. Second, the spectrum resource in the L-band is splintered.” MSV is “highly motivated to cooperate and get our spectrum back and obtain more efficient use of the spectrum. Our motivation is to cooperate and ensure both objectives,” she said.