FWCC Earth Station Petition Seen as Troubling to Satellite Truck Operators

The FCC's existing full-band, full-arc earth station licensing policy is vital for satellite truck operators and their occasional use, short-term mobile satellite operations, said one of those operators, Pacific Satellite Connection (PacSat), in a filing Monday in RM-11778. It responded to a Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition petition for changes in earth station licensing (see 1610180035). PacSat said it sometimes doesn't know what venue from which it will provide satellite services until a few days prior, and thus has to coordinate frequencies on a very short notice. It said the C-band frequencies and satellites on which it operates for different events can depend on available frequencies and satellite capacity, and thus "the rigid licensing regime proposed by FWCC ... would render these services all but impossible." FWCC didn't comment.