EchoStar: Block Cable from Spectrum
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 1/29/2002 10:14:00 AM
Cable operators should be barred from bidding for direct-broadcast satellite spectrum if federal regulators open the spectrum to new entrants, EchoStar Communications Corp. said recently.
The Federal Communications Commission is weighing whether to allow Northpoint Technology Ltd. to share DBS spectrum. Northpoint wants to obtain access to the spectrum free-of-charge and offer video programming and high-speed data using ground-based transmitters
In a Jan. 23 letter, EchoStar told the FCC that if the spectrum is opened for new users, the agency must conduct an auction. In addition, cable operators should not be allowed to bid, EchoStar said.
'DBS providers should be eligible to apply for such licenses, but cable operators should not be allowed to bid on account of their market power and anti-competitive incentives,' EchoStar said in a two-page letter disclosing a Jan. 22 meeting between representatives of EchoStar and DirecTV Inc. and Peter Tenhula, senior legal adviser to FCC chairman Michael Powell.
EchoStar and DirecTV are opposing Northpoint's entry by claiming that shared use of the spectrum would interfere with the reception of DBS signals into the homes of millions of subscribers.
Northpoint claimed that interference problem can be addressed though adjustments made to dishes at individual homes.
Meanwhile, EchoStar is proposing that Northpoint should deploy its service in a spectrum allocation adjacent to the DBS band.
That band is heavily used by cable operators for ground-based microwave links, and both Northpoint and the National Cable & Telecommunications Associations have told the FCC they reject the introduction of new users in the adjacent band.
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