The FCC unveiled plans earlier this week to again hold an auction of satellite C-band spectrum. It has now emerged that SES, the main satellite beneficiary of the restructuring, is firmly in favour of the FCC’s scheme.

The FCC plan is to auction “at least” 100 MHz by July 2027. The FCC said the commission “Had no time to spare. [We] will consider all options within that range [100 MHz-180 MHz], with the ultimate goal of maximising the amount of spectrum to be repurposed as generational aviation safety upgrades occur in the adjacent band.”

The news drove SES’s share price up 5 per cent on October 29th (to €7.06) reflecting the windfall potential of many billions of dollars that an FCC auction would generate.

The 2020 clearing of C-band spectrum saw the satellite industry receive $9.7 billion in compensation, most of which went to Intelsat and SES. The process wrapped in August 2023.

SES filed an ‘ex parte’ note to the FCC on October 27th following up of a meeting between Adel Al-Saleh, SES CEO, and Nancy Eskenazi, SVP/Global Legal & Regulatory Affairs, who met with FCC’s Chairman Brendan Carr and Arpan Sura, his Senior Counsel and Chief AI Officer, to discuss the Upper C-band (3.98 to 4.2 GHz) proceeding.

SES encouraged the Commission to use a similar process as was used for the prior, successful C-and clearing. SES noted that, as it clears more spectrum, the technical complexity, timeline, cost and customer impact increases. While clearing the Upper C-band will be more complicated than the prior round, SES believes that using a similar process with appropriate relocation costs and accelerated clearing payments would expedite and ensure a successful process.

While the value of the proposed spectrum in an auction would be measured in the tens of billions of dollars flowing into the US treasury, SES (now also incorporating Intelsat) would receive a significant sum for clearing its spectrum, but a percentage would also go to Intelsat’s former shareholders as part of the agreement with SES made in April 2024. Intelsat former shareholders would receive 42.5 per cent of future spectrum-sale proceeds. But that still places 57.5 per cent – or thereabouts – into the SES bank account.

There would also likely be modest compensations for Telesat of Canada and Paris-based Eutelsat for their spectrum clearing activity.

Other posts by :

1. Congested orbits mean high risks of debris
2. SpaceX bids fairwell to booster 1076
3. Bank: LBG Media results “in line”
4. WBD: Surprise, surprise… not
5. SpaceX to lose Moon Lander contract?
6. Arianespace 64 delayed – again
7. Oman’s Spaceport ready for fast-track launches
8. Bank uplifts RocketLab
9. AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird/FM1 en route to India

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Satellite, Spectrum

Tags: FCC, SES, spectrum