WASHINGTON-Northpoint Technology Ltd. is again pushing its plan to offer wireless broadband using digital broadcast satellite spectrum, and it has received some powerful support on Capitol Hill in the form of a positive hearing by the Senate communications subcommittee.
“We support [the Emergency Communications and Competition Act] because it ensures that terrestrial operators, like Northpoint and any other qualified applicant, will be licensed in the same manner as satellite companies who share the same spectrum,” said Antoinette Cook Bush, Northpoint executive vice president.
Bush testified before a friendly Senate communications subcommittee on Thursday.
At the hearing, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), the sponsor of the bill, also spoke in favor of the bill, which has 16 co-sponsors.
The most powerful support came from Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who said he thought he had fixed the Northpoint problem in 1999. “I understand you have a bill before you that would do what we thought we were doing in 1999,” said Stevens.
Instead the Federal Communications Commission interpreted the Stevens 1999 language to require Northpoint to participate in auctions even though others in the band got their licenses through a beauty contest.
The wireless industry has opposed Northpoint’s efforts because it complains it had to participate in auctions to receive spectrum for services similar to what Northpoint is proposing.
Wireless industry officials did not appear at the hearing; rather the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association led the opposition to Northpoint.
While Northpoint has a patented technology it believes will allow it to build a land-based network in the satellite band without causing interference to satellite services, SBCA President Andrew Wright disagreed. After the FCC said earlier this year that Northpoint could compete at auction to build a land-based service in the DBS band, SBCA appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Wright believes the D.C. Circuit will hear the case in the fall.
