FCC Moves To Free Up Spectrum For Potential Cellphone Service (wsj.com) 25
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: The Federal Communications Commission will pay a group of satellite companies billions of dollars to upend their operations so a valuable swath of the radio spectrum can be used for cellphone service (Source: paywalled; alternative source), FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. The telecom regulator said he plans to propose $3 billion to $5 billion of compensation for reasonable relocation costs and another $9.7 billion of accelerated payments to incumbent operators in the C-Band section of the electromagnetic spectrum. Private companies that bid for the frequency licenses in a future auction would foot the bill, Mr. Pai said.
Existing satellite companies, which include Intelsat SA and SES SA, serve television broadcasters and cable-network operators in the U.S. with video feeds that could be interrupted by cellphone service unless the companies modify their satellite systems. "We need to align the satellite companies' private interests with the public interest," Mr. Pai said Thursday in a speech hosted by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington telecom policy group. The chairman's plan, which would free up the lower 280 megahertz of C-Band spectrum, is a proposal and must be approved by the five-member commission at its next meeting. If the proposal is approved, Mr. Pai said he plans to start a federal auction of the radio frequencies on Dec. 8.
Existing satellite companies, which include Intelsat SA and SES SA, serve television broadcasters and cable-network operators in the U.S. with video feeds that could be interrupted by cellphone service unless the companies modify their satellite systems. "We need to align the satellite companies' private interests with the public interest," Mr. Pai said Thursday in a speech hosted by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington telecom policy group. The chairman's plan, which would free up the lower 280 megahertz of C-Band spectrum, is a proposal and must be approved by the five-member commission at its next meeting. If the proposal is approved, Mr. Pai said he plans to start a federal auction of the radio frequencies on Dec. 8.
What this really means... (Score:4, Informative)
C-Band was one of the first satellite frequency bands that could reach the 48 connected states, but now things have moved to other frequencies so it's time for the last remaining services to be shut off, and move that bandwidth over to 5G cellular service. This is one of the things that will make cell phone service better for all four carriers, and should return billions to the Federal Budget from the auctions.
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Returning Billions to the Federal Budget ONE TIME is almost meaningless. The nat. debt is about $22-23 Trillion and the last tax giveaway, which was solemnly projected to pay for itself, has caused $1 Trillion yearly deficits. Enjoy the debt fueled economy while it lasts, but it will end and with a huge bill that needs to be paid yearly to service all that debt.
Honestly the deficite doesn't matter (Score:2)
Or as Emo Phillips said, when the Chinese come and ask us what we spent all that money on we'll just say "oh, all these bombs....".
But if we're still that worried about it here's an idea: the absolute worst projections for Medicare for All (the ones from the partisan Koch bros' think tanks) say it saves $2 trillion a year. Why
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What this really means is that when Ajit Pai ends his tenure at the FCC and takes up his position on the board of directors at Verizon, his bonus will be based on how much money he was able to make for Verizon.
Since this spectrum is worth billions, he will earn his cut by taking it away from its current users and re-allocating it to Verizon.
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Well, if he weren't a Verizon quisling, I suppose he wouldn't deserve all that criticism. However, he is, and creating conditions for the large telecoms to get even larger squishing any emerging technologies and competition is not a recipe for success.
Are they also going to pay (Score:2)
the people who still have c-band dishes in their yards? Because they'll need to replace their hardware as well.
Frequencies (Score:2)
In case anyone else was wondering...
Nearly all C-band communication satellites use the band of frequencies from 3.7 to 4.2 GHz for their downlinks
So they would be switching 3.7 GHz to 4.0 GHz for cellular use, and I presume leaving the 4.0 - 4.2 GHz for continued satellite use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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To clarify, satellite microwave C-band as used by TVRO is 3.625â"4.200 MHz. So many services would have to move out of this range. It's not fair to TVRO services and the free money given to them would be far short of the actual cost of moving to a piddly 4.0-4.2 GHz.
Check out the vast number of 3.625-4.200 MHz users over at Lyngsat.com [lyngsat.com]. This so-called "solution" is a serious blow to cable TV companies and TVRO, though these companies should have switched to Ku- and Ka-band a decade ago now that rain fa
Translation: (Score:1)
Mistranslation (Score:2)
If the point is to benefit the carriers, they'd want to reduce the available frequency space. That would benefit the incumbent operators, and allow them to hike prices without deploying new infrastructure.
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Yeah, it's not like the cellphone carriers have any actual customers who might benefit from increased service, nor that they won't be paying for the spectrum licenses, right?
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Even a grade school understanding of markets suggests that you need more than one competitor before you can have the competition you need for a functioning capitalist economy.
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That still doesn't do it since that still leaves the rural users with no competition for their business.
To be in the same market, the rural customers would have to have the same options for service.
In the '90s, the existing players accepted a big pile of cash to provide service in rural areas. We're still waiting.
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I suspect that what would happen is StarLink would spin off one service available only in urban areas at a competitive price, and a really expensive service available everywhere that would have mostly rural customers who have no actual market choice.
You must have really HUGE window boxes if you don't believe that infrastructure improvements in rural america help everyone. And such an understanding landlord, most apartments balk at large dogs!
FCC thinking ahead? (Score:2)
Wow, Ajit Pai is moving the FCC into something that resembles a future.
At this rate I'm going to demand he have a crack at the federal budget.
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The alleged administration DID have a crack at the federal budget, now we have $1 Trillion yearly deficits and a total federal debt load of $22-23 Trillion. Any more cracks the budget will collapse under debt servicing costs.
Data Point (Score:2)
C Band is the big (2.5 meter+) dish system. There are still a surprising number [drsat.ca] of free to air channels available on it.
how about unlicensed (Score:2)
The most economically productive band recently has been the ISM band. That is, unlicensed use. That gave us WiFi, Bluetooth, xBee, etc. All that from a band nobody wanted.
Given that, why is the FCC so anxious to sell off anything that isn't nailed down to the telecomms industry with it's history of tall promises to the public good that don't amount to anything?
I'm an advocate of satellite TVRO preservation (Score:2)
I'm an advocate of satellite TVRO preservation, but I cannot understand why cable head-ends want to keep their microwave C-band spectrum. All of what's on microwave C-band is duplicated on Ku- and Ka-band. Perhaps they don't want to upgrade their TVRO stations?
The argument is usually that "Ku- and Ka-band are affected by rain fade." This had been solved over a decade ago with robust TPC forward "error correction and automatic power control that automatically boosts transmit power as the signal degrades d [bcsatellite.net]