Green Light: FCC Wins DC Circuit C-band Battle

摘要

The FCC won a major battle at the DC Circuit Tuesday with the court deciding not to stay the Commission’s Cband auction order. The DC Circuit ruled that the appellants had not “satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal.” The companies appealing for a stay of the auction included satellite operators ABS Global Ltd, Empresa Argentina de Soluciones Satelitales SA, Hispamar Satélites SA and Hispasat SA. At the center of the dispute is the FCC’s decision to offer incentive payments to certain satellite operators that relocate to the upper 200MHz of the band on an expedited basis. Telesat, SES, Eutelsat and Intelsat all elected to choose the expedited plan. The challenging operators were deemed not eligible to receive those payments by the FCC because they provide no service within the US. But the small satellite operators believe they are deserving of those payments and argued that the election would cause them irreparable harm by “benefiting competing space station operators that are eligible for relocation and accelerated relocation payments and depriving them of spectrum access rights without compensation.” They also questioned the FCC’s authority to modify their spectrum access rights. “Today’s ruling is great news for American consumers and US leadership in 5G,” FCC chmn Ajit Pai said in a statement. “I am very pleased that the DC Circuit rejected this attempt by small satellite operators with no US operations in the C-band to delay our efforts to repurpose critical mid-band spectrum.” The court’s decision comes two weeks after the FCC denied a petition from the same group of satellite operators to stay the C-band auction and transition process pending judicial review. Similar to statements made by the DC Circuit in its ruling, the Commission ruled that the petitioners had not shown that they would suffer irreparable harm or a likelihood of success on the case’s merits. “The harm that Petitioners allege is not imminent, is conjectural, and consists of economic injuries that are not severe enough to be cognizable as irreparable harm,” FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau chief Donald Stockdale said in the order. The C-band war isn’t quite over, however. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau is currently seeking comment on another request for stay pending judicial review, this time from PSSI Global Services. It has also submitted a challenge to the DC Circuit, claiming the relocation of services will destroy satellite video distribution systems. Comments in the docket are due Thursday; reply comments are due June 30.