Eutelsat to rejoin C-Band Alliance?
September 23, 2019
By Chris Forrester
Eutelsat, in a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filing on September 19th, told the FCC that it might rejoin the C-Band Alliance (CBA). Eutelsat dramatically quit the CBA in earlier this month.
Lawyers for Eutelsat met with FCC senior officials on September 17th.
The CBA is looking to restructure and auction some of its C-band frequencies over the US, and the FCC is expected to announce its decision in the next month or two.
Eutelsat’s filing said: “Eutelsat expressed its willingness to reconsider actively participating in the CBA going forward if, among other things, the structure and management of the CBA could be altered to better represent the interests of all affected stakeholders.”
“During the meeting, Eutelsat discussed its reasons for originally agreeing to join the CBA and its recent decision to withdraw from the CBA. The Eutelsat representatives emphasized that Eutelsat continues to support the CBA’s proposal of employing a secondary markets approach to rapidly clear a significant portion of the 3.7-4.2 GHz band for 5G wireless services and discussed Eutelsat’s views concerning the appropriate role of each stakeholder, the potential allocation of a portion of the reconfiguration proceeds to the U.S. Government, and the treatment of eligible spectrum clearing costs.”
A few days before, on September 11th, Eutelsat filed a document with the FCC which listed each of their satellites with any coverage over the US together with their transponders and frequencies. Some commercially sensitive information as to the revenue from each of these satellites was redacted in the public documents.