Intelsat's Opposition to Two-Degree Spacing All About Unfair Advantage, Say EchoStar, SES

Intelsat's opposition to the two-degree spacing rule largely involves it trying to secure a competitive advantage, particularly against nascent companies and new satellites, EchoStar and SES said in FCC ex parte filings (see here and here) in docket 12-267 posted Tuesday. They said that SES and EchoStar representatives met with Nicholas Degani of Commissioner Ajit Pai's office and separately with International Bureau staff, and defended the two-degree rule status quo and repeated their pushback against Intelsat arguments that ITU coordination would be preferable to the FCC spacing rules (see [Ref:1508210020]). Minus two-degree spacing, new satellite companies and space stations "could be blocked by incumbents indefinitely based on conservative ITU coordination criteria," the two said, saying Intelsat's holding of "numerous high priority ITU filings" would be to its benefit over other operators: "Operators -- primarily Intelsat -- would have effective veto power over any other operator's new or replacement satellites." Meanwhile, discussion of special protection for incumbents with satellites in operation that don't comply with the two-degree separation rule would similarly be to Intelsat's unfair benefit, EchoStar and SES said. "Given that Intelsat’s numerous ITU filings are among the oldest in the world, [it] will likely claim this special protection at virtually every orbital location," the net result being a de facto end to the two-degree policy anyway, they said. Instead, the satellite companies said, the FCC should keep the rule and increase two-degree spacing operating levels "to more realistically and accurately correspond with those of modern satellite systems." Intelsat didn't comment.