A hearing on March 17th before Judge Keith Phillips at his Intelsat bankruptcy court decided to deny certain stockholders any official voice in the upcoming Intelsat financial restructuring. The ad hoc group also wanted the court to determine which of the dozens of Intelsat businesses should receive the FCC’s C-band incentive payments. The group of […]
The Federal Communications Commission is making valuable mid-band spectrum in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band available for auction to facilitate 5G deployment across the contiguous United States. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 required the Commission to commence a system of competitive bidding for licences in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band by the end of 2021. The […]
The world’s three-largest satellite operators are complaining to Canada’s government regarding its proposed restructuring of C-band spectrum for 5G adoption. In essence they are saying that they must be compensated for giving up their frequencies over Canada, and any Canadian scheme which only compensates Telesat would be a violation of trade agreements. The comments come […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is seeking permission to launch its Starlink broadband-by-satellite service to moving vehicles. Musk, in a Tweet, stressed that Starlink was not targeting Tesla or other cars, but aircraft, ships, large trucks and RVs; “Our terminal is much too big [for cars]” he said. Sami Kassab, satellite analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP, said […]
SpaceX, which is moving ahead with its broadband-by-satellite service, is asking the FCC for permission to beam signals to moving vehicles, vessels and aircraft. If granted, the SpaceX services will be ‘blanket licensed’ under the FCC’s existing ‘Earth Stations in Motion’ rules and be capable of handling internet services to any moving vehicle including cars […]
During its results call with analysts, SES explained that its “unparalleled reach” continued to expand. Back in 2016, it reached some 325 million homes (more than a billion people) and was delivering about 7,741 channels. By Q3/2020 its channel count had expanded to 8,157, the Number 1 supplier of channels in the industry. Drilling down […]
The US’s Federal Communications Commission has announced the winning bidders and the final bid totals in Auction 107 – commonly referred to as the C-band auction. Net winning bids totalled $81,114,481,921 (€66.48bn) and gross winning bids totalled $81,168,677,645 . Twenty-one bidders won all of the available 5,684 licences. “It is essential to America’s economic recovery […]
Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC’s acting chair, says the 5G auction for new spectrum in the US has ended. “Stay tuned for the final results of this auction,” she tweeted. “We’ll make [the results] known through a Public Notice in a few days. Another big step forward for 5G.” She continued: “Congrats to the FCC’s outstanding […]
The world’s major satellite players are busy preparing for 5G. While much of the focus has been on the US, where some of their C-band frequencies have been auctioned off by the FCC, similar sell-offs are happening around the globe. A report from Northern Sky Research (NSR) says that direct satellite connectivity to mobile, at […]
It was always expected that there could be extra payments to the C-band satellite operators once the FCC-organised auction had shown the strength of demand for spectrum. The four key players (Intelsat, SES, Telesat and Eutelsat) are already in line to share around $10 billion in FCC-authorised “incentives” for clearing their C-band satellite spectrum. With […]