DIRECTV submits that it is now time for the Commission to undertake a thorough and systematic analysis in a rulemaking proceeding of the implications of reduced orbital spacing for DBS satellites serving, or proposing to serve, the United States at 12 GHz. As the Commission anticipated, potential foreign BSS entrants have begun, in an uncoordinated, piecemeal fashion, to challenge the Commission’s longstanding nine-degree spacing policy. SES Americom, Inc. (“SES”), for example, has filed a petition for declaratory ruling to provide service to the United States from a proposed U.K -filed modification to the Region 2 BSS Plan at 105.5, in between US assignments at 101 WL and 110 WL - that is, 4.5 degrees away from five high-power DBS satellites, including one state-of-the-art spot-beam satellite that DIRECTV uses to serve more than eleven million US consumers.
Furthermore, SES's proposed entry into the United States at 105.5 WL is not an isolated proposal. Foreign administrations, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, now have proposed Region 2 Plan modifications proposing U.S. coverage at 96.5 WL, 114.5 WL, 125 WL, and 127 WL. And although initially opposed to the SES proposal, EchoStar Satellite Corporation ("EchoStar"), a major U.S. domestic DBS operator, now has joined the fray, filing applications for authority to operate DBS satellites from 86.5 W.L., 96.5 W.L., 114.5 W.L., and 123.5" W.L.
Although DIRECTV opposed the SES Petition, it has no categorical objection to a connsideration of tweener DBS satellites at reduced orbital spacing. Indeed, DIRECTV itself in 1997 proposed 4.5 degree-spaced DBS satellites in spectrum allocated for DBS use at 17 GHz when that spectrum becomcs available in 2007. However, any decision to insert short-spaced DBS satellites serving the United States into the arc must be supported by a comprehensive technical record, and not effectuated through a series of piecemeal “landing rights” or licensing adjudications or unrelated, “one-off” coordinations with other administrations. The Commission has acknowledged repeatedly that a rulemaking proceeding “is generally a better, fairer and more effective method of implementing a new industry-wide policy than is the ad hoc and potentially uneven application of conditions in isolated proceedings affecting or favoring a single party. And a rulemaking proceeding is specifically the approach thc Commission has taken in the past -- wisely in DIRECTV’s view -- regarding fundamental changes to or implementations of orbital spacing policy.