Internal Intelsat emails make clear that the company backed out of the C-Band Alliance (CBA) due to maximizing the cash Intelsat would get from a C-band clearing, rather than being triggered by the FCC opting to go with a public spectrum auction, SES argued Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Intelsat outside counsel Mike Slade of Kirkland & Ellis replied that SES is "trying to jam a square peg into a round hole” and ignored how the CBA agreement terms were essentially negated by the spectrum auction approach the FCC ultimately took.
Matt Daneman
Matt Daneman, Senior Editor, covers pay TV, cable broadband, satellite, and video issues and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications in 2015 after more than 15 years at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, where he covered business among other issues. He also was a correspondent for USA Today. You can follow Daneman on Twitter: @mdaneman
Putting federal muscle behind repurposing or recycling orbital debris and designating a single agency responsible for overseeing orbital debris removal were recommended by the space community to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. That's according to nearly 400 pages of comments filed last month with OSTP on its proposed debris R&D plan, and obtained Friday via a Communications Daily Freedom of Information Act request.
The inaugural launch of Viasat's ViaSat-3 high-throughput satellite system will be in late summer, due to supply chain delays, CEO Rick Baldridge said Thursday as Viasat announced Q3 results. He said Viasat's Inmarsat acquisition is progressing, having filed its premerger antitrust notification with DOJ and prepared regulatory filings for jurisdictions around the world. He said close should be by year-end. Baldridge said revenue for the quarter was $720 million, up $144 million year over year, driven by in-flight connectivity growth and its RigNet and EBI acquisitions. Viasat reported 1,800 aircraft receiving the in-flight service, up 53%. Asked during the call with analysts about business enterprise services competition posed by SpaceX, Executive Chairman Mark Dankberg said “it's a very big market” and growing. He said Viasat’s enterprise approach involves more vertical integration beyond just broadband service provision, and Viasat doesn't see material SpaceX competition going forward. Viasat stock closed at $44.02, up 5.6%.
Predicting a booming 2022 for commercial space businesses, speakers Thursday at a Space Foundation webinar also warned that orbital debris is of increased concern. Space junk could be "a real handbrake" to space industry growth, and there needs to be a global plan for addressing it, said Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck. Two of the space insurance industry's biggest worries are increased potential for collisions as space becomes more crowded and higher potential for failures due to proliferation of new satellite and launch technologies, said Chris Kunstadter, AXA XL global space head. He said a better understanding is needed of the risks involved in commercial human spaceflight. The commercial space industry “weathered the [COVID-19] storm … better than most,” said Eric Stallmer, Voyager Space executive vice president-government affairs and public policy. He hopes the stock market slide in the past few weeks doesn’t mean investment drying up. He said commercial orbital debris mitigation and removal deserves more funding. Speakers said workforce issues and competition for employees is a big issue. “Talent is a real throttle for everybody,” Beck said. Spaceflight is in the midst of a several-year transition from being the province of nations' civil space programs to a commercial operation, with a commercially built and operated space station next, said Sierra Space President Janet Kavandi.
Low earth orbit (LEO) altitudes are becoming problematic or carry sizable risks due to orbital debris, experts told us. Increased attention and research is focusing on LEO carrying capacity. Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg said those orbital issues will become a major factor in where operators decide to put constellations. It could mean operators wanting the competitive advantage from those orbital altitudes will use cheap satellites with a relatively low consequence for failure, he said. "It's a race to the bottom."
National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) ad hoc committee members pressed the FCC about the rationale for rejecting the proposed 1 db interference standard in its 2020 Ligado order. Thursday's meeting was one in a series as part of a NASEM independent technical review of the order contracted by DOD, with the committee assessing the potential for harmful interference to GPS and satellite systems for DOD operations (see 2012040043). FCC staffers spent roughly 40 minutes going over the order and rationale, and often pointed to aspects of the order when asked questions. Committee member Preston Marshall, Google engineering director, challenged the FCC for deeming 1 db as a defective interference protection criteria but then "walk[ing] away completely" from finding more suitable protection criteria. "What it boils down to ... there were no alternatives offered," replied Office of Engineering and Technology acting Chief Ron Repasi. The committee and FCC representatives discussed whether Ligado had an affirmative direction to fix interference issues in military equipment, or just to negotiate for a fix. The commission order wanted a program where DOD and Ligado work together to figure out interference issues, said Paul Murray, OET associate chief. He said GPS manufacturers know how their gear performs and how it would respond to Ligado signals. "I don't want to say it's easy," but certain determinations can be made with such discussions "by people who know how to think about the problem," he said. Asked about whether the FCC is obligated to ever respond to or act on the reconsideration petitions, Murray said that while there's no deadline, "there are lots of things that are moving out there that may influence" what the agency does.
Charter Communications will ramp up broadband speeds throughout its network this year with more high-split deployments, CEO Tom Rutledge said Friday as the company announced Q4 results. The high-split upgrades allow symmetrical gigabit speeds or multi Gbps downstream, and are cheaper than network capital spending such as new nodes, he said. Rutledge said Charter will expand its 800,000-mile network by 100,000 miles over the next five years through Rural Digital Opportunity Fund funding. He said beyond RDOF, the company is using broadband stimulus money and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding to reach other rural areas, plus expanding into areas adjacent to subsidized builds. That rural spending, including RDOF and other subsidized rural projects, will be about $1 billion this year in capital expenditures, said Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fischer. Rutledge said Charter continues to work on DOCSIS 4.0 tech development, with recent tests delivering speeds of more than 8 GB downstream and more than 6 GB upstream. He said Charter is rolling out its 5G hybrid mobile network operation using citizens broadband radio service small cells in an unspecified market, letting people connect to CBRS small cells when they're not in Wi-Fi reach. Charter said it ended 2021 with 28.1 million residential broadband customers, up 1.1 million year over year and 15.2 million residential video subscribers, down 400,000. It reported 3.4 million residential mobile lines, up 1.1 million, and 8.6 million residential voice customers, down 600,000. Revenue was $13.2 billion, up $600 million. The stock closed up 5.3% at $590.47.
With its Peacock streaming service growing faster than expected, Comcast plans to ramp up spending on content for it, executives told analysts during a quarterly call Thursday. CEO Brian Roberts said it will look at ways to expand its broadband footprint more aggressively, with government subsidies and new household and business formation potential growth opportunities.
The commercial space universe is moving toward satellites operating in close proximity, such as for satellite servicing and inspections, but the technology and the policies to allow such work is lagging, space policy experts said at a Secure World Foundation/Center for Strategic International Studies webinar Wednesday. As space becomes more congested and more nations and private sectors are in space, "the more states worry" about close approaches in geostationary orbit (GEO) and low earth orbit, said Almudena Azcarate Ortega, U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research associate researcher-space security and weapons of mass destruction programs. Space "already suffers from a significant lack of trust" and approaches done without consent or transparency would increase that, she said.
A second pass by the FCC at updating orbital debris rules might have to wait until a fifth commissioner is confirmed, space experts and commission staff told us. Commissioners approved an orbital debris rules update order 5-0 in April 2020, with some contentious issues in the draft moved to an accompanying Further NPRM (see 2004230040). An agency official said a draft order is potentially not a huge priority for Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, parked behind bigger priorities and not being vigorously pushed by staff. The chairwoman's office will have to move on it at some point, given the mega-constellation boom, the official said.