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Communications Businesses United States

FCC Approves Plan To Pay Satellite Companies To Give Up Airwaves (bloomberg.com) 38

Posted by msmash from the paving-the-way dept.
U.S. regulators approved a plan to pay Intelsat SA and other satellite providers to give up airwaves so they can be redeployed for the fast 5G mobile networks being rolled out. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission on a 3-2 vote Friday approved Chairman Ajit Pai's plan for as much as $9.7 billion to clear the frequencies, with the money coming from bidders expected to include large telephone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc. The action "will help deliver 5G services to consumers across our country and promote our global leadership," said Pai. The satellite companies use the spectrum to beam TV and radio programs to stations, but say they can give up part of it while still serving customers on frequencies they retain, in part because they would use new satellites to carry data. The FCC will sell the airwaves at a public auction. Pai earlier proposed that Intelsat get as much as $4.85 billion for clearing airwaves quickly. The FCC in its vote didn't say if that figure had changed.
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FCC Approves Plan To Pay Satellite Companies To Give Up Airwaves More

FCC Approves Plan To Pay Satellite Companies To Give Up Airwaves

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  • The verb you're looking for is 'to buy'.

  • And everyone is so worried about Bernie's plans (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @08:43PM (#59780390)

    Between this, and paying companies to ditch Huawei equipment, the FCC seems to be feeding the corporate gravy train.

    Sure, the FCC will probably make some money re-selling the "airwaves" but how many people's hands will that pass through?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Between this, and paying companies to ditch Huawei equipment, the FCC seems to be feeding the corporate gravy train....

      Of course they are, who do you think the government works for? Only the overly-affluent are worried about Bernie Sanders. No idea why, even if they had to give up their excess, they wouldn't really notice. Oh, except how much better the economy was; oh, and they wouldn't be so conspicuously wealthy. I wonder if they understand how contemptible unbridled greed and conspicuous consumption really is? I really feel sad for anyone who is so addicted to materialism, it's worse than crack, meth or opiates. You don

    • >"Between this, and paying companies to ditch Huawei equipment, the FCC seems to be feeding the corporate gravy train.

      The FCC is facilitating the transfer of airwaves from one set of companies where it does little for consumers and is under-utilized to another set of companies where it could do a LOT for consumers. And at zero cost to taxpayers. Please explain how this relates in any way, shape, or form to "feeding a corporate gravy train" or "Bernie"'s plan to tax the hell out of everything and grow t

      • "Bernie"'s plan to tax the hell out of everything and grow the Fed beyond all imagination.

        Also known as "Bernie's plan to spend several times the total value in the economy".

        You can't do that by printing money to "pay" for it, or just confiscating it, because there isn't enough in existence to take.

        And you can forget about getting anybody to build the rest, too, when you've got nothing to encourage them to work but slave drivers.

    • Why do you assume it's a corporate handout? These companies invested money into equipment to use these frequencies to communicate with satellites. Their satellites have dedicated transmitters and receivers which are tuned to these frequencies. This isn't a software issue where you can just tweak some code, upload the patch, and you're back in business. The antennas and tuners are physically designed to operate on these frequencies - it's a limitation of physics. And you can't just send a tech up into o

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cylix ( 55374 )

      This is the same as when they sold off the 2.4 spectrum.

      I was leasing some point to point analog gear and the guy said he doesn't get many rentals. He was going to sale it to my company for a few grand or less because the FCC was shutting down that spectrum.

      It was less altruism on my part, I didn't have two grand to spend in those days, but I casually mentioned the spectrum wasn't just being shut down. If you owned equipment in that range you could get a replacement for free. Needless to say it was no longe

  • Before I left my last job I had to register all of the ground stations we had with the FCC. Simple fact is that those bands suck for terrestrial communications. Keeping noise and co channel out of them was a regular problem. Truth is the FCC doesn't work for the citizens, it works for the companies that exploit the citizens with crap service and crap products. We are eventually going to be the laughing stock of the world over these kinds of idiot moves.

  • Wow (Score:2)

    by sjames ( 1099 )

    All that so that if you climb half way up the right light pole and hold your phone out over traffic, you can burn an entire month's data quota in 1/4 second.

    • All that so that if you climb half way up the right light pole and hold your phone out over traffic, you can burn an entire month's data quota in 1/4 second.

      You lucky bastard, you have light poles to climb. /s

  • The FCC allocates frequencies for specific usage. They then sell license to access those frequencies to the highest bidder. The successful bidder then receives a license to use the allocated bandwidth. Some licenses have additional restrictions of their use.

    If the FCC wants to reallocate bandwidth it licensed previously, the licensee is owed reparations [at the minimum a refund of the successful bid].

    If the reallocation is beneficial to the public usage of a limited resource, and used appropriately,

    • The only problem I see is if the public has to pay the licensee more than the newly allocated license generates.

      I think that goes without saying. When government is actively funneling money it is usually from the people to the corporations, not vice versa.

  • 5G again huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NateFromMich ( 6359610 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @09:13PM (#59780470)
    It just seems like it's getting dumber every day.
    It's bad enough that it won't actually be useful for much of anything to anyone, but now we'll have to start sacrificing other services to make it happen.

  • Stop selling the spectrum! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday February 28, 2020 @09:24PM (#59780498)

    It's completely idiotic that frequencies are being sold to private companies rather than leased. Those who buy the frequencies can sit on them and do nothing while the value of the spectrum increases. Whoever decided to sell such a finite resource to corporations is an idiot who should be dug up just so that we can slap them.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      I've got to wonder if all of this spectrum shuffling in advance of any actual 5G rollout isn't a ploy to knock competition off the air. There goes your OTA and satellite TV. And so much for your dedicated business bands. Now if you want to communicate, you'll have to pay the telecoms for a service subscription.

    • >"It's completely idiotic that frequencies are being sold to private companies rather than leased."

      At first thought, that seems reasonable. Until you realize just how many billions of dollars and many years a company might need to spend on equipment just to use that spectrum. If it were leased, there would be danger they could lose a huge investment and that might lead to no company being willing to take such a risk.

      • If it were leased, there would be danger they could lose a huge investment and that might lead to no company being willing to take such a risk.

        Improbable but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      It's completely idiotic that frequencies are being sold to private companies rather than leased. Those who buy the frequencies can sit on them and do nothing while the value of the spectrum increases. Whoever decided to sell such a finite resource to corporations is an idiot who should be dug up just so that we can slap them.

      There are usually or always requirements that the frequencies be put to continuous use within a given time-frame or they will be taken back.

  • Ham Radio is screwed too (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28, 2020 @09:24PM (#59780500)
    It also takes the 9-centimeter band away from Ham Radio as well.
  • So which frequency bands are being discussed.

    • C-Band:
      3700mhz-3980mhz will get reallocated to 5G/mixed use
      20mhz guard band
      4000mhz-4200mhz will remain and everyone in the lower band will get packed in to this band.

  • They don't even care if it's practical or not.
  • Satcom is the new future for communications, and with SpaceX launching many of the new micro-birds that will enable it, it makes sense that the bandwidth needs to be spread around for a swing from land based towers to satellite networks of the future. The internet has more or less replaced the dedicated satellite feeds for most broadcast network feeds, except for live news and sporting events. Many of the satellite receivers that I used to take feeds from in the heyday of cable TV are now more or less red

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