The Federal Communications Commission has denied a request by Globalstar for a 16-month extension to comply with the rules governing its ATC licence. The decision means that the spectrum leasing agreement between Globalstar and terrestrial rural…
The Federal Communications Commission has denied a request by Globalstar for a 16-month extension to comply with the rules governing its ATC licence. The decision means that the spectrum leasing agreement between Globalstar and terrestrial rural broadband provider Open Range is effectively annulled in the short term with the FCC giving Open Range 60 days to cease using the S-band ATC spectrum and obtain access to other spectrum.
Surmising its decision, the FCC stated: “We conclude that Globalstar has not justified its request for a further extension of time. Specifically, we find that Globalstar has not established that its failure to come into compliance with the ATC gating criteria within the established timeframe was due to circumstances beyond its control or other sufficient justifications. We therefore deny the request and suspend Globalstar’s ATC authority until such time as it comes into compliance with Commission rules.”
Back in May 2008, Globalstar requested a modification of its ATC license to permit implementation of a spectrum leasing business plan developed in collaboration with Open Range. The FCC subsequently granted the satellite operator a temporary waiver of the ATC gating criteria, giving Globalstar 16 months to come into compliance with certain specified conditions. Specifically, Globalstar was required to launch its second generation satellites by July 1, 2010 and begin offering two-way mobile satellite services to customers with dualmode MSS/ATC terminals by July 1, 2011. Globalstar recently announced that the first batch of six of its second generation satellites would be launched via a Soyuz rocket on October 19, 2010.
The decision is particularly galling to Globalstar given that it originally filed the request for an extension of the gating milestones back in December 2009 and the FCC’s International Bureau has only come to a decision now, 45 days after the July 1 milestone deadline. In addition, Globalstar’s executive chairman James Monroe personally met with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on September 9 to discuss the requested extension.
The FCC’s judgement also comes as quite a surprise given its recent change in stance on the usage of spectrum allocated to mobile satellite services in the 2GHz, Big LEO and L-bands. In July 2010, the FCC adopted the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) which suggested potentially removing certain regulatory barriers to terrestrial use in the MSS bands. This move came on the back of the regulator’s decision in March to allow LightSquared to modify certain terms of SkyTerra’s ATC licence.
The question therefore arises as to whether this new hard line will be extended to the other MSS-ATC licensees. On September 15, Terrestar had a request to modify its ATC gating requirements approved for filing by the FCC with a decision due over the next couple of months.
Meanwhile, LightSquared will also require a waiver to its milestones after the launch of SkyTerra-1 was delayed to December 2010 or early in the first quarter of 2011 following a technical issue. LightSquared is also committed to particularly stringent network rollout commitments, so any slippage could affect this.
In a filing to the FCC, LightSquared predominantly blames the delay on development and integration issues associated with SkyTerra-1’s 22-meter L-Band reflector antenna. The delivery of this to the satellite’s manufacturer Boeing was approximately six months late.
