EchoStar submitted a petition for rulemaking to the FCC Thurs., a...

EchoStar submitted a petition for rulemaking to the FCC Thurs., asking the Commission to redesignate the nongeostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) fixed satellite service (FSS) bands to include GSO FSS operations on a co- primary basis: “[I]t is unlikely that an NGSO FSS system will be deployed to serve the [U.S.] anytime soon. Therefore, the requested lifting of that restriction would increase significantly the chance that the spectrum in question will be put to use in the foreseeable future.” EchoStar proposed allowing GSO birds to use 1.5 GHz of Ka- band spectrum for either uplinks or downlinks, mitigating “the bandwidth constraint that will otherwise hamper the rollout of satellite broadband services that will reach remote rural areas and compete with cable modems and DSL in more urban areas.” Additionally, EchoStar asked the Commission to: (1) Remove the note in the table of allocations designating the downlink band for exclusive NGSO use. (2) Promote “GSO FSS systems from secondary to co- primary status in the 28.6-29.1 GHz band.” (3) Establish sharing standards in the band. (4) Apply existing licensing rules for GSO FSS service to service in these bands, including 2 degree spacing. (5) Extend blanket licensing rules for consumer terminals communicating with GSO satellites to this band. The company said it recently filed applications to operate GSO FSS satellites in the NGSO FSS spectrum -- 28.6-29.1 GHz (Earth to space) and 18.8-19.3 GHz (space to Earth) -- and while it asked for a waiver of “Commission rules to allow the proposed operations pending the conclusion of the requested rulemaking… the applications do not request co-primary operational authority and should be processed separately from this petition pursuant to the first-come, first-served rules.”