WASHINGTON-Though legislation to privatize the world’s two multigovernment international satellite consortia is unlikely to move until next year, firms are moving ahead aggressively to lock in new mobile satellite service spectrum to position themselves for uncertain competition.
Last week’s hearing on a bill to restructure the International Mobile Satellite Organization and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization underscored the level of controversy within industry, Congress and the administration that will keep the legislation from moving forward this year.
The measure is cosponsored by House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-Va.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). The Communications Satellite Competition and Privitization Act of 1997 is, thus, technically a bipartisan bill. Whether the bill, in its current form, has bipartisan support is another question.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the top ranking minority Commerce Committee member, has major concerns with the bill.
The Clinton administration, meanwhile, is reportedly unhappy because it believes the bill gives the Federal Communications Commission more jurisdiction than necessary and unnecessarily locks the United States into too rigid a negotiating posture insofar as working out restructuring plans with other nations.
“There is no question that this bill attempts to accomplish some laudable goals,” said Dingell. “But it does so by unilaterally dictating a privatization timetable and rules that the rest of the world must follow. How can we avoid a foreign backlash and retaliatory measures that would unduly burden American consumers? How can we accomplish privatization without subjecting U.S. interests in Intelsat and Inmarsat to punitive outcomes? How can we ensure that American users of satellite services continue to have access to as many choices in the market as possible?”
Comsat Corp., the U.S. signatory to Inmarsat and Intelsat, said the bill is ill conceived and would actually thwart the very goals Congress is trying achieve.
Inmarsat and Intelsat, which have legal immunities and commercial advantages by virtue of their protected monopoly treaty status, compete for certain markets that private sector mobile satellite firms may wish to serve.
Consequently, it is no surprise the U.S. mobile satellite industry is all for overhauling Inmarsat and Intelsat.
“Technology is making possible a broad array of services by satellite, capable of reaching and benefiting everyone. Intelsat and Inmarsat remain vestiges of another time and represent a concept of monopoly control which is dated and wholly opposed to what the U.S. and the private sector have been working towards over the past decade,” said Gerald P. Helman, vice president of Mobile Communications Holdings Inc.
MCHI, which holds one of the five big low-earth-orbit satellite licenses, is one of a group of applicants seeking access to new MSS spectrum at 2 GHz, the band where terrestrial personal communications services operates. Others include London-based ICO Services Ltd., Celsat America Inc., American Mobile Satellite Corp., Iridium Inc., Globalstar L.P., Constellation Communications Inc. and Boeing Co.
Because the pool of applicants includes many firms that already hold MSS licenses, the FCC may be forced to consider restricted eligibility much as it did in limiting cellular operators’ control of PCS spectrum.
So far, no service rules have been written for 2 GHz MSS.
