C-Band Transition 'on Schedule': Intelsat

Intelsat's seven C-band replacement satellite programs "continue to progress on schedule," as do all other transition deliverables, per its C-band transition status report in docket 18-122 Wednesday. It said it has moved all customer services in the contiguous U.S. out of the lower 120 MHz on its fleet, and started Phase 2 transition activities. It said it has delivered all required encoding upgrades and all the integrated receivers/decoders needed to meet the Phase I milestone have been installed. Most compression equipment required for Phase II has been ordered, it said. Filter deployment in 46 of the top 50 partial economic areas began June 1 and about 23% of Phase 1 filter installations are done, it said. Embratel said it expects to deorbit its Star One C1 satellite, which provides C-band services in the U.S., in late August or early September. It said one customer remains on the satellite and will be transitioned to another satellite before deorbiting. It said it has tried -- unsuccessfully -- for more than a year to contact its last indirect U.S. customer, a Florida earth station receiving C-band services through an Embratel distributor, to inform it about the C-band relocation and C-band capacity available on SES' SES-4 satellite. It said that earth station's license lapsed in December. Embratel said it no longer expects to rely on the SES arrangement to transition any of its C-band customers.