Fairest Clearing Uses US Earth Station Feeds, CBA Says; Others Also Lobbying FCC

The fairest route to allocate payments to incumbent C-band operators for speeding band clearing and repack would be based on the number of continental U.S. earth station C-band feeds, the C-Band Alliance filed. About 99 percent of CONUS earth station C-band feeds would point to CBA members, 1 percent to Eutelsat satellites and a minuscule amount to ABS, Embratel and Hispasat. The consortium said all other suggested allocation regimes are inherently unfair.

Eutelsat was singled out. That company's proposal of equal value being assigned to all satellite capacity touching CONUS would give "extraordinary compensation for the satellite companies that have the least amount of work to do," CBA said. The group said Eutelsat's approach to treat equally the supposed lost revenue opportunities of an operator with a coverage footprint of part of one state vs. an operator covering much of CONUS "virtually ensures" there would be litigation. Eutelsat didn't comment.

The C-band clearing and repack for AT&T's WarnerMedia means reducing satellite transponder use, eliminating its current C-band distribution of standard definition video and implementing high-efficiency video coding throughout its content distribution chain, AT&T said. That means deploying conversion equipment to convert high definition video to SD and preserving the availability of an SD video stream at headends where SD feeds are being used, it said. The FCC needs to appoint a transition administrator to coordinate all the activities, and to adopt rules on what expenditures are eligible for compensation and to implement a process for payment of reimbursements and adjudicating disputed claims, the telco said. It should confirm that preparatory expenditures done before a C-band auction are reimbursable if the expenses are otherwise qualifying, the carrier said. It suggested enforceable progress milestones linked to financial incentives on the transition administrator.

A successful switchout of satellite for wireless depends on making incentives for incumbent satellite operators sufficient to ensure they take part in the transition, NAB, Discovery, Disney, Fox, Univision and ViacomCBS told an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. "A successful transition will rely on specific commitments the satellite operators have made in this proceeding and in direct negotiations with customers, including loading commitments, the launch of new satellites, and reimbursement of all costs."

Mandatory incentive payments required of new licensees would be "a dangerous and regressive precedent" of incumbents resisting band sharing or reorganization, New America's Open Technology Institute said. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai made a "very welcome decision to propose a public auction" that "allays" some OTI concerns, the group said. "If the CBA is able to extort payments based on the future value of reallocated spectrum they are not using -- and never paid for -- every incumbent of an underutilized or outmoded band will use that precedent to fiercely resist band reorganization or sharing."

The incumbent satellite operators should have a "central role" in the band clearing, with "appropriate incentives and penalties for [them] to keep this clearing process on track," Verizon said. It said the agency should set specific milestones for clearing, such as 100 MHz cleared in six months in specific partial economic areas, with reductions in satellite operators' incentive payments for lateness. Verizon said the satellite operators should manage the spectrum clearing and repacking, while a transition facilitator oversees payments.