An Open Letter to DirecTV from Northpoint

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silversurfer

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Sep 8, 2003
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WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Sophia Collier, Chair, of Northpoint Technology sent the following letter to DirecTV CEO Eddy Hartenstein:
I am writing to ask you to stop your campaign of distortion against Northpoint Technology's plans to create a low cost competitor to DBS and cable. You say our company should not be licensed in the same manner as international and global satellites because the "DBS industry must participate in auctions to receive spectrum." This is totally disingenuous and you know it.

* Your company Hughes Electronics -- the largest DBS operator -- has never
paid the Treasury one cent in an auction for any of its spectrum
licenses and yet it is the largest spectrum holder in the United States.

You have paid nothing at auction for your DBS or any other spectrum. Zero. You must also know that 88% of all DBS spectrum was never auctioned and that the FCC has not held a satellite auction of any kind in almost seven years.

* Our company is only seeking to share the very same spectrum that your
company was already given without auction.

It is outrageous that you would advocate that we have to pay to share something that you were given free.

DirecTV is now seeking regulatory approval to sell 1/3 of its company for almost $7 billion dollars -- This enormous profit is the direct result of the vast spectrum grants you have assembled.

As you know, people have questioned the sale of your company because of concerns that you will fail to use your enormous spectrum grants in the public interest. This is understandable because today:

DirecTV fails to carry over 1,000 television stations
DirecTV raised prices by 10% on basic service in 2003
DirecTV does not carry the Emergency Alert System
DirecTV does not offer a viable high speed internet service
Mr. Hartenstein, I think you should spend less time lobbying to impose unfair burdens on new competitors and more time seeking ways to use your free spectrum to improve service to the public.




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Source: Northpoint Technology, Ltd.

Original article can be found here
 
Actually, isn't Northpoint the people who want to share all the DBS spectrum but use it for ground based transmission from antennas to the north of the areas they serve? Them being to the north supposedly will stop interference with the DBS signal.
 
Northpoint is, as of this time, the only authorized applicant for MVDDS services. MVDDS stands for Multichannel Video Data Distribution System. As proposed it shares the spectrum with DBS downlink frequencies (12.2-12.7 Ghz) but would require an antenna to point north rather than towards the equator, hence the term "Northpoint". This is supposed to reduce the possibility of harmful interference with DBS. It seems to me that the worst interference problems would be on the edges of the DBS footprint, say for someone on the west coast who had a dish pointed at 61.5, which would be almost due east with a look angle of 10 to 20 degrees. My guess is that if Northpoint were in use in San Bernardino it would probably wreak havoc with anyone in Los Angeles trying to watch anything at 61.5.
 
So basically they want to use any satellite slot that would provide a dbs signal in that range, besides those that DirecTv and Dish use?
 
Not a satellite slot really, just the frequencies that are used by the DBS slots, transmitted by ground antennas.
 
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