Judge Keith Phillips, who is overseeing Intelsat’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reconstruction, has formally confirmed that the trial date for the SES vs Intelsat dispute over FCC payment allocations will start on September 20th. A series of key requirements leading up to that date must also be met, said the Court’s order. Separately, SES is seeking […]

EchoStar, a business owned by Charlie Ergen, has a crucial date on June 25th for a rocket and satellite launch. If the satellite is successfully put into orbit then Ergen will secure near-global rights to S-band licences. If it doesn’t work – and two previous attempts have failed – then Ergen’s permissions to use the […]

SES, in its assorted legal filings with Intelsat’s bankruptcy court, insists that it has sufficient proofs of Intelsat’s deliberate duplicity in how the end-game in the C-band allocation of the FCC’s $9.7 billion payments was managed. SES is asking the court for a Summary Judgement of its claim and the court has scheduled August 19th […]

SES continues with its legal onslaught on Intelsat and a $1.8 billion claim for a greater share of the FCC’s $9.7 million incentive payments, and for punitive damages to be levied by the bankruptcy court on Intelsat. Following on from the formal request for Summary Judgement in its case against Intelsat, SES has issued a […]

Intelsat’s exit from its Chapter 11 restructuring could be badly delayed and distributions to other creditors limited by the dispute between SES and Intelsat over C-band payments from the FCC. SES is claiming at least $420 million, and potentially $1.8 billion if the bankruptcy court awards punitive damages, over the way the FCC’s incentive payments […]

The legal dispute between SES and Intelsat has now extended itself to the FCC, and the FCC’s official licensing of C-band frequencies. Intelsat, on June 11th, filed a formal submission to the FCC and clarified which of the many Intelsat businesses actually held the C-band licences over the US. On June 10th, SES Americom filed […]

SpaceX’s Starlink has submitted an application to the FCC for permission to test a smaller antenna for its broadband-by-satellite service. The application asks for a temporary licence to test 5 new user terminals (in California, Colorado, Texas, Utah and Washington State). These new designs will use the same uplink and downlink frequencies as a conventional […]

Intelsat and SES, the two largest operators of C-band frequencies over the US, have completed Phase 1 of their clearance of spectrum by the important June 1st deadline. It means that the two, plus Eutelsat and Telesat of Canada, can qualify for the FCC’s initial end-of-year pay-out of some $2 billion in so-called incentive payments. […]