C-Band Appellant PSSI Fighting C-Band Appellant SES' Appeal
Despite a rift between two of the parties challenging the FCC's C-band order in federal court, PSSi's effort to get SES' appeal dismissed isn't expected to significantly affect the consolidated challenges to the order, we were told. A lawyer involved in the FCC proceeding said SES isn't really a petitioner but a conditional cross-petitioner. The company has told the court it won't file a petitioner's brief.
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SES can't have it both ways, appealing the FCC's C-band clearing order and also backing the order as an intervenor in some consolidated cases challenging the order, PSSI Global said Wednesday. It's U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit motion (in Pacer, docket 20-1142) sought dismissal of SES' notice of appeal and petition for review. PSSI said SES didn't make clear what injury it suffered due to the C-band order, which gave it what it wanted -- accelerated relocation payments -- so it doesn't have standing to appeal. If a court vacated and remanded the order, or if the FCC on remand opted to not do accelerated relocation payments, "SES might suffer an injury in the future, but not today," PSSI said.
SES in a statement of issues told the court it appealed and petitioned "as a prophylactic measure to protect its interests if the accelerated clearing does not proceed as ordered by the Commission," and it "strongly supports" the order. SES said its appeal of whether the December 2025 deadline for final transitioning of the 3.7-4 GHz band is arbitrary and capricious was contingent on whether the accelerated relocation framework is struck from the order. SES opposed PSSI's request that the FCC stay the C-band order (see 2006250007|). SES didn't comment Thursday.
Appellate lawyer M.C. Sungaila of Haynes Boone emailed it's "not unusual to see a party on the other side of the V" -- whether the defendant or appellee -- move to dismiss to end the appeal. She said it seems PSSI doesn't believe SES is aligned with its position, "not truly a co petitioner but a party with positions perhaps contrary to theirs. In that case, you might want to knock the fellow 'petitioner' out of the appeal."
SES and Intelsat, opposed to PSSI's request to the agency for a stay, "do not understand the needs of fixed earth stations, much less the particular needs of operators of transportable earth stations [or] have forgotten with the expectation" of billions of dollars in accelerated relocation payments, PSSI said in an FCC docket 18-122 posting Thursday. It said there's continued demand for occasional C-band use by programmers, but progressively less capacity. It said C-Band Alliance testing showed filters don't protect transportable earth stations near high-power 5G mobile nodes from signal degradation, distortion and multi-path interference.