Satellite Industry Sees Rare Alignment in Earth Station Siting Worries

The satellite industry expects at least some changes to the FCC International Bureau earth station siting guidance that's the subject of a reconsideration petition, given the seeming unintended consequences of it, we're told. Since it's about staff guidance and not an order, the outcome isn't exactly clear. The Satellite Industry Association had petitioned for changes.

The FCC told us Thursday that under its rules, when an action taken by the agency is subject to a recon petition, the commission will be the one acting on it. When the action was taken by staffer under delegated authority, the petition can be acted on by that person or referred to the agency for action.

Long lists of satellite industry representatives have been on conference calls with eighth-floor aides to air concerns about the public notice (see 2008040067). A call with an aide to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly earlier last week had representatives from SIA, EchoStar, SES, SpaceX, Intelsat, Telesat, Amazon, Spire, Viasat, Boeing and Inmarsat, according to a docket 17-172 posting. That kind of consensus can be rare in the industry, a satellite company lawyer said. Comments on the recon petition are due Aug. 21, replies Sept. 8.

The lawyer said CTIA might oppose the recon petition. CTIA emailed that high-band spectrum "is critical to the U.S. leading in 5G, and we support the FCC’s decisions to ensure new authorizations for other services don’t upset the Spectrum Frontiers proceeding’s carefully calibrated framework.” SIA Senior Director-Policy Therese Jones said none of what the industry is seeking is a big deviation from current procedures or should cause interference issues.

An industry lawyer said both the sector and commission staff saw a need to fill in details from the spectrum frontiers order on the conditions for fixed satellite service earth stations operating in the bands shared with upper microwave flexible use service (UMFUS). The industry expected guidance on best practices for compliance, but "we didn't quite expect some of the things that came out" because it deviated from and conflicts with the previous record, Jones said.

Not changing the guidance would make earth station siting far more difficult, Jones said. Satellite operators' objections to the guidance include that it now seems to dissuade collocation of earth stations with UMFUS, when before the commission had urged that, she said. Other technical requirement issues include the antenna patterns used for demonstrations, the requirement population values for satellite earth stations with multiple communication points be aggregated and the requirement demonstrations use worst-case and not just clear-sky power density levels, she said.

The guidance also creates "a logistical nightmare" in its definition of highway for collocation issues by now suggesting earth station operators look at state definition instead of just federal Transportation Department data, Jones said. Federal highway maps might not include all the roads that need protection, and there can be big inconsistencies among states when trying to incorporate their various policies and maps, she said.