Satellite Industry, Taking 5G Lumps, Sees Need to Make its Case Better

When the satellite industry was able to forestall 28 GHz spectrum sharing at WRC-15, it got almost immediate backlash, with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler "castigating the industry for winning" (see 1603090057), said satellite lawyer Phillip Spector of Milbank Tweed. "We really have to walk this fine line. ... You can't afford to alienate the chairman." Meanwhile, outside of the ITU process, many countries -- like Brazil, Canada and Mexico, plus the U.S. -- are looking independently at 5G use of 28 GHz, Manner said. A significant amount of WRC-19 will be dedicated to 5G/satellite sharing, she said.

The increased sharing regime between satellite and terrestrial wireless providers is going through some growing pains, said ViaSat Associate General Counsel-Regulatory Affairs Christopher Murphy. The satellite industry is used to easy sharing with fixed services or other satellite operators, but "we have a rowdier crew coming into our bands [and] there are some cultural differences," Murphy said. Satellite and terrestrial are still figuring out how to talk with each other as industries, and government could play a rule in facilitating such talks, he said.

A President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report on spectrum sharing (see 1207230040) raised the idea of database-enabled sharing through computer coordination of devices, but the wireless industry is afraid of proprietary network information disclosures such as locations of cell towers, Murphy said. "We are going to have to work through those issues."

Among higher bands, technology like phased array antennas and beamforming will make sharing feasible, said Audrey Allison, Boeing director-frequency management services. She also said that with plans for a massive V-band satellite constellation (see 1606230050), Boeing has been proactively having technical discussions with 5G proponents such as manufacturers and service providers.

Space traffic management also faced critiques. Too many overlapping, uncoordinated efforts nationally and internationally are aimed at space situational awareness (SSA) regulation, but most lack any enforcement mechanisms, said George Washington University Research Professor-Space Policy Henry Hertzfeld: "There is no stick at the end." Though SSA is an international issue, Hertzfeld said, it has to start with nations adopting their own rules and then coordinating them among one another instead of directly at an international agreement. Arkisys CEO David Barnhart backed commercial sector commitments instead of a regulatory framework.

Satellite industry insiders said the FCC is working on drafting an NPRM that would look at space traffic management. Satellite Industry Association President Tom Stroup had told us it looks likely to be issued in Q1 as part of an expected small satellite NPRM (see 1607110043).

FCC International Bureau Satellite Division Policy Branch Chief Stephen Duall said the agency is considering liability insurance coverage requirements in response to the numerous announced low earth orbit (LEO) and non-geostationary orbit constellations. "It used to be the 'space is big' theory was sufficient" to assuage collision fears, said Analytical Graphics (AG) Vice President-Engineering Tom Johnson. "That is not the case anymore." AG said various planned LEO constellations carry very different probabilities of collisions or near misses, with LeoSat's constellation expected to generate 284,000 collision warnings over a 10-year period; the potentially much larger SpaceX constellation, in a lower orbit, could generate a possible 105 million warnings and as many as nine actual collisions.

Having told Congress it could take over DOD's role of monitoring space traffic (see 1604070041), the Federal Aviation Administration hopes to get authorization for a six-to-nine-month pilot program that would answer questions such as the cost of such a handover, said George Nield, FAA associate administrator-commercial space transportation. He said the FAA is working with DOD and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on determining what a civil space traffic management system would look like.

The best fixed satellite service (FSS) business opportunities in coming years will be in the aviation, backhaul and consumer broadband offerings, but some traditional FSS business lines -- such as telephony and cable head-end services -- will have declines in coming years, Northern Sky Research (NSR) analysts said. Services using Ku-band will decline slightly through 2025, roughly offsetting growth in Ka-band services, but the big drop will be a $1.3 billion decline in C-band leasing capacity in a price war, said Brad Grady, NSR senior analyst. He said a chief backhaul opportunity for satellite will be in the rise of 3G and 4G architecture delivered over satellite.

Satcom is in the midst of multiple simultaneous challenges -- the softening of the government and commodity markets, the declines of the Russian and Brazilian economies, the waves of high-throughput satellite capacity coming online and the erosion of satellite's traditional video market, NSR President Chris Baugh said: "It is definitely not ideal time to be selling satellite capacity." In the past 10 months, satellite data connectivity pricing is down at least 10 percent, he said, and terrestrial data capacity providers are similarly struggling under pricing pressures, with prices expected by 2020 to be roughly a quarter of what they are today.