Schism on Proposed Regulatory Fees Touches on Foreign-Licensed Satellites
Satellite operators remain divided on the FCC assessing satellite application and regulatory fees on foreign-licensed satellites with U.S. access (see 1912090053), in docket 19-105 replies posted Tuesday. The fees are proposed as part of the FY 2020 fee schedule. A broadcaster urged changing the methodology for calculating VHF regulatory fees.
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Ray Baum's Act doesn't give the FCC authority to assess such fees and they would be duplicative of other application fees and regulatory assessments paid by foreign space station licensees, and probably would result in retaliatory assessments by foreign administrations, Inmarsat posted. Kepler said such fees as U.S. licensees pay wouldn't be fair since foreign operators don't get the same services U.S. licensees do, especially on coordination and space debris mitigation oversight. OneWeb said none of the backers of the expanded payment regime made clear how Baum's Act ending a method of apportioning regulatory charges "somehow expanded the universe of entities" subject to them. It said while the current fees regime puts U.S.-licensed operators at a disadvantage, they would face a bigger one in an increase of internationally imposed regulatory charges. Telesat said while it doesn't make U.S. regulatory payments, it does pay Canadian ones so the argument it and other foreign operators need to also pay U.S. fees isn't equitable.
Backing the collections, EchoStar, Hughes Intelsat and SpaceX said they are long overdue as non-U.S.-licensed satellite systems generate "not insignificant" work for agency staff, with new market access requests outnumbering U.S. satellite license applications in 2018 and 2019. U.S.-licensed satellite operators subsidize an ever increasing amount of their competition’s U.S. regulatory burden," they said. SpaceX said U.S. Court "of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit precedent also shows the FCC has authority for such fees. The company said if there was a real danger of foreign regulatory agencies imposing such fees, U.S.-licensed operators would have brought that up.
That foreign-licensed satellites don't face the same regulatory fees as domestic ones is "a major inequity," AT&T said. It likened the proposal to the International Bureau's extending to non-common carrier terrestrial international bearer circuits the regulatory fees that already applied to common carrier terrestrial IBCs. The carrier said the FCC has ample authority to levy such fees, as nothing in the Communications Act requires any such exemption for non-U.S. licensed satellites, while Baum's Act authorizes such fees.
The Satellite Industry Association urged axing the IBC payment for satellite operators given how minuscule the satellite industry's international telecom capacity is and the hefty other regulatory fees the industry pays. It favors a "more tailored" assignment of costs for full-time equivalents in non-licensing divisions, noting the Enforcement Bureau rarely focuses on International Bureau licensees, but satellite service providers seemingly pay an excessive share of indirect FTEs. CenturyLink urged that some IBC regulatory costs be reallocated as indirect, FCC-wide costs or to other specific payers since many of the IBC regulatory costs have nothing to do with IBCs. It said those remaining IBC regulatory costs should be rebalanced among the IBC payers.
Urging a rebalancing of cost allocations between geostationary orbit and non-geostationary orbit satellites, Intelsat, SES and EchoStar said the FCC is using old assumptions regarding the underlying costs of GSO and NGSO regulation. They companies seek an update on costs attributable to GSO and NGSO regulation.
Agreement is widespread that the FCC should adjust the way it calculates regulatory fees for VHF TV stations, wrote Maranatha Broadcasting. “Need for a revision of the fee structure is a given in all of the comments on this issue,” Maranatha said. “VHF stations simply are not as valuable as UHF stations in the same market and do not get the same economic benefit out of the cost of regulation of their facilities.” The FCC should base fees for VHF stations on an average of what UHF stations in a given market pay, the broadcaster said. NAB’s proposal to base the payments on station contour should be rejected, the company said: It “would have the effect of perpetuating higher fees for VHF stations that once had superior coverage with former UHF facilities, but no longer do after their transition to VHF channels.” If the FCC moves forward with NAB's plan, caps should be included to prevent VHF stations from having fees higher than UHF stations in a market, Maranatha said.