Satellite’s multi-billion dollar windfall

The consortium of Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat and Telesat of Canada control 100% of the C-band capacity over the US. While there will be costs and a degree of hard work to reassign their clients (almost all the US cable and IPTV operators) to other frequencies and perhaps different satellites, there is still likely to be an enormous benefit to the four majors.

The quartet is already talking about making 200 MHz of capacity available. The financial impact is all down to the amount likely to be paid by the telcos for the frequencies.

Importantly, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pushing for at least 200 MHz to be allocated, and some senior members of the FCC are arguing for “at least” 200-300 MHz to be freed up. On 2 October, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, addressing the 7th Annual Americas Spectrum Management Conference in Washington praised the four’s initiative, saying how much the FCC welcome the move but that 100 MHz simply would not suffice. O’Rielly has spearheaded the search for a workable way to harness C-band for 5G for the past two years.

However, and just to balance the argument, there were some grumbles from…