Companies
Fail To Reach Consensus On Ka-band Assignments
 Companies
bidding in the second round of Ka-band slot assignments told the
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that they "have
been unable to arrive at a consensus orbital assignment plan"
and have asked the FCC to intervene. FCC licensing of the
second-round Ka-band applications has been delayed for several weeks
because of unresolved problems due to the licensing spectrum for
inter-satellite links. The companies, including Loral Cyberstar,
Hughes Communications, Lockheed Martin, PanAmSat and Pegasus
Communications, said "the best course of action at this time is
to terminate their meeting and to return the matter to the
(FCC)." The FCC will review letters filed by each company prior
to taking action, "We will wait to see what they say before we
consider any approach for this. We will decide whether there are
possible technical solutions before we decide on an auction."
The U.S. Congress
is pressuring the FCC to expedite the licensing process, urging a
"use it or lose it" approach with companies that are
“warehousing” spectrum and orbital slots. House
Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and
six other members of Congress sent a letter to FCC Commissioner
William Kennard recommending that he review the Ka-Band satellite
license applications among companies that have failed to meet
deadlines for use of orbital slots. The letter said that many of the
orbital locations "remain unused and are at risk of being lost
to other countries if the FCC does not enforce its rules in the near
future.”
In
1997 licenses for more than 50 slots were issued to several
companies, including PanAmSat, Netsat28, Motorola and EchoStar. The
U.S. could lose priority rights to the slots if operational
satellites are not deployed into the orbital locations by November
2004, according to International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
rules. NetSat28, MorningStar, and PanAmSat are companies that
recently had licenses revoked for failure to meet FCC construction
milestone deadlines.
Copyright 2001 - Andrews Space & Technology
Andrews Space & Technology Privacy
Statement and Copyright Information
SPACEandTECH Digest is a weekly roundup of the latest industry news of interest
to the space professional. SPACEandTECH Flash! is an internet push
service offered by Andrews Space & Technology to bring the
latest on orders, launches, and important breaking news to your
desktop. SPACEandTECH Digest and SPACEandTECH Flash! are part of
the Andrews Space & Technology www.spaceandtech.com
website, a website designed to serve the information needs of the
space industry.
If you would like to subscribe to the SPACEandTECH
Flash!
(currently a free service), contact the www.spaceandtech.com
Editor-in-Chief, Joe Hopkins, at editor@spaceandtech.com
|
