Satcom Operators Pitching C-Band Auction Options
Satellite operators are pushing their plans for how an FCC C-band auction (see 1911220066) should work. Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer, in meetings with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks and an aide to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly,…
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said it backed Pai's call for a C-band public auction, per a docket 18-122 posting Friday. Eutelsat said reallocation incentives "should be efficient, fair, transparent and competitively neutral" for C-band satellites authorized to provide services and their earth station customers. It said the agency should give primary responsibility to the C-band satellite operators to manage and complete the transition of their earth station customers' services, and they can best work with them to do that transition in a timely fashion using voluntary, market-based arrangements. It said a transition monitor could manage payments to satellite operators. The company said incentive payments to C-band satellite operators with capacity to serve the continental U.S. should include a fixed, upfront incentive payment to cover voluntarily relinquishing authorizations and undertaking obligations to manage the transition process while ensuring continuity of earth station customers. There should be reimbursement of actual and reasonable satellite operator costs in transitioning earth station customers to other bands or alternatives, and a final payment for achieving FCC-defined transition requirements, plus deductions or penalties for not meeting timelines. It's working on a refined proposal with a total incentive amount, to be paid from auction proceeds. ABS Global, Claro and Hispasat said Thursday the FCC could add a terrestrial use component to satellite authorizations but make clear those flexible use rights would have to collectively assigned by some deadline through auction. It could also require satellite operators to allow the FCC to do the auction on their behalf, avoiding the litigation risk that comes with letting a small group of satellite operators sell spectrum in a band where more hold similar rights. ABS and the others said earth station operators should get incentive payments so they can "invest in connectivity solutions that facilitate bridging the digital divide." ABS et al. proposed a satellite operator compensation formula that incudes computing each operator's share of the total amount of capital "impaired by a repurposing" and each operator's share of the total amount of spectrum use rights relinquished.