Intelsat: “200 MHz today; maybe more later”
October 31, 2018
By Chris Forrester
Intelsat’s CEO Stephen Spengler told analysts during its Q3 conference call that the C-band Alliance’s (CBA) plan to free up C-band capacity for the USA’s speedy adoption of 5G would be limited to 200 MHz, and that this bandwidth was the highest slice of spectrum likely to be available in the short-to-medium term.
Spengler said that 200 MHz was the maximum available to be cleared in the target 18-36 month time-frame.
Intelsat says that neither it – or other members of the CBA – had done any work above the 200 MHz target, and that freeing up additional spectrum would require a greater depth of technical development and possibly new satellites.
Moreover, anything above 200 MHz is not on the CBA’s agenda.
Sami Kassab, an analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP, in a note to investors, said that the bank continued to believe that 250 MHz was a possibility.