NPR says “hold on” over C-band and 5G use
June 6, 2018
By Chris Forrester
The National Public Radio (NPR) is urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to pause a moment and to think again as to how C-band satellite spectrum is allocated over the US.
Intel, Intelsat and SES are involved in a consortium which is seeking to free up some C-band spectrum in order to encourage a rapid take-up of 5G usage over the USA. They expect to receive lucrative payments for the spectrum re-allocated.
Some heavyweight members of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) are also urging the FCC not to weaken the protections already in place for current spectrum usage and allocations. NAB’s members use C-band spectrum (from the likes of Intelsat and SES) to send and receive signals to their cable head-ends and re-transmission sites to more than 1000 local stations across the US.
The NAB says the FCC must carry out much more detailed due diligence prior to permitting a reallocation of C-band spectrum.
NPR says simply that its distribution across the US depends on satellite-based C-band, which it uses to get to 42 million listeners via 1270 public radio stations.