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 w  i  v  e  d 
 Before  the 
 Washington,  D.  C.  20554  FEDERAL  COMMUNICATIONS  COMMISSION 
 w-  m- 

 In  the  Matter  of  )  ) 
 Proposals  to  Permit  Reduced  Orbital  )  Report  No.  SPB-  196  Spacings  Between  U.  S.  Direct  Broadcast 

 Satellites  )  ) 

 COMMENTS  OF  DIRECTV,  INC. 
 DIRECTV,  Inc.  (  DIRECTV)    hereby  offers  the  following  comments  in  connection 
 with  the  above-  captioned  Public  Notice,  which  seeks  comment  on  various  proposals  to  permit 
 reduced  orbital  spacings  between  U  S  .  DBS  satellites  in  the  12  GHz  band.*  DJRECTVs  initial 
 position  on  the  reduced  orbital  spacing  issue  is  reflected  in  the  Petition  for  Rulemaking  filed  by 
 DIRECTV  Enterprises,  LLC  on  September  5,2003  (the  DIRECTV  Petition),  which  is  attached 
 to  the  Public  Notice  as  Exhibit  B. 
 The  DIRECTV  Petition  begins  where  the  Commission  must  begin  in  any  inquiry  into 
 reducing  the  orbital  spacing  between  DBS  satellites  authorized  to  serve  the  United  States  -  by 
 acknowledging  that  nine-  degree  orbital  spacing  has  been  the  cornerstone  of  the  U.  S.  DBS  service 
 since  its  inception,  and  that  the  policy  has  served  both  industry  and  the  public  extremely  well. 
 As  the  DIRECTV  Petition  observes,  billions  of  dollars  have  been  invested  in  a  deployed  satellite 
 infrastructure  that  provides  competition  to  cable  monopolies  and  extends  multichannel  video, 
 audio  and  other  innovative  services  into  geographic  areas  unreached  by  cable.  In  a  single  decade 

 DIRECTV  is  a  wholly-  owned  subsidiary  of  DIRECTV  Enterprises,  LLC,  a  wholly-  owned  subsidiary  of  Hughes  Electronics  Corporation  (  Hughes)  and  a  Commission  licensee  in  the  direct  broadcast 
 satellite  (  DBS)  service.  Internationally,  DBS  is  known  as  the  broadcasting  satellite  service  (  BSS)  and  the  terms  are  used  interchangeably  in  these  comments. 

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 since  the  launch  of  the  first  U.  S.  DBS  satellite,  the  service  has  grown  to  serve  more  than  20 
 mi  11  ion  subscribers. 
 Furthermore,  from  the  standpoint  of  service  growth  and  innovation,  adequate  orbital 
 spacing  has  allowed  U.  S.  DBS  operators  in  recent  years  to  deploy  high-  power  satellites  that 
 incorporate  spot-  beam  technology,  which  enables  them  to  offer  satellite-  delivered  local 
 broadcast  channels,  thereby  fostering  increased  competition  with  incumbent  cable  television 
 operators.  Such  spacing  could  become  even  more  critical  as  U.  S.  DBS  operators  continue  to 
 innovate  to  increase  capacity  by  deploying  additional  spot-  beam  satellites;  implementing  higher 
 order  modulation  and  coding;  and  rolling  out  new  services,  such  as  high-  definition  television 
 (  HDTV)  programming  and  interactive  services.  Indeed,  on  this  score,  the  prospect  of  such 
 benefits  being  realized  in  the  near  term  is  not  speculative  -  they  are  being  actively  pursued  by 
 DIRECTV  as  the  highest  of  priorities.  For  example,  as  a  result  of  the  Commissions  recent 
 approval  of  the  transaction  between  Hughes  and  The  News  Corporation,  Ltd.,  DTRECTV  must 
 offer  local-  into-  local  service  in  a  total  of  130  designated  market  areas  (  DMAs)  across  the 
 United  States  by  the  end  of  this  year,  and  DIRECTV  intends  to  serve  the  entire  country  with 
 local  channel  service  within  the  2006-  2008  time  frame.  3  The  use  of  additional  nine  degree- 
 spaced  spot-  beam  or  CONUS  satellites  will  be  critical  to  achieving  that  goal? 

 *  U.  S.  DBS  systems  uplink  programming  utilizing  the  17.3-  17.8  GHz  frequency  bands,  and  downlink  programming  from  DBS  satellites  to  consumers  utilizing  the  12.2-  12.7  GHz  band  (  I  2  GHz  band). 
 See  In  the  Matter  of  General  Motors  Corporation  and  Hughes  Electronics  Corporation  and  The  News  Corporation  Limited,  Memorandum  Opinion  and  Order,  MB  Docket  No.  03-  124  (rel.  Jan.  14,2004) 
 (  Hughes-  News  Corp  Decision),  at  77  332,  334. 
 DIRECTV  has  filed  applications  to  use  the  Canadian  BSS  spectrum  at  72.5  W.  L.  licensed  to  Telesat  Canada  by  the  Canadian  spectrum  licensing  authority  to  provide  U.  S.  domestic  DBS 

 service.  This  demonstrates  DIRECTVs  continued  belief  that  nine  degree  orbital  spacing  is  important  to  maintain  for  a  BSS  service  in  Region  2  where  45  cm  dishes  are  predominant. 

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 Congress  has  declared  its  goal  of  promoting  the  continued  emergence  of  DBS  as  a  strong 
 competitor  to  incumbent  cable  operators,  and  has  given  U.  S.  DBS  operators  the  authority  to 
 deliver  local  broadcast  signals  to  consumers  via  satellite  in  order  to  achieve  that  goal.  Therefore, 
 a  key  inquiry  for  the  Commission  is  whether  adopting  a  new  BSS  orbital  spacing  plan  at  12  GHz 
 would  serve  the  public  interest,  or  would  instead  jeopardize  the  public  interest  benefits  of  the 
 new  regime.  In  making  this  determination,  the  Commission  should  bear  in  mind  that  there  is  an 
 abundance  of  FSS  Ku  and  Ka  band  capacity  that  could  be  used  to  provide  direct-  to-  home 
 (  DTH)  video  and  broadband  services,  as  well  as  the  prospect  of  future  BSS  capacity  being 
 opened  up  in  the  17  GHz  band  in  2007.5  The  availability  of  such  capacity  could  lessen  the 
 urgency  for  the  Commission  to  explore  the  difficult  tradeoffs  that  the  deployment  of  tweener 
 satellites  would  entail. 
 In  any  event,  however,  the  Commission  must  examine  such  questions  systematically  and 
 with  careful  study.  One  of  the  main  points  of  the  DIRECTVPetition  is  one  of  process:  the  issue 
 of  whether  short-  spaced  tweener  satellites  can  be  authorized,  and  if  so,  their  technical 
 characteristics  and  the  spacing  that  they  must  observe  in  order  to  protect  the  operations  and 
 future  growth  of  deployed  U.  S.  DBS  systems,  are  subjects  best  addressed  in  a  rulemaking  setting 
 and  supported  by  a  comprehensive  technical  record.  The  decision  to  move  from  nine-  degree 
 orbital  spacing  as  a  matter  of  U.  S.  policy  should  not  be  effectuated  through  a  series  of  piecemeal 
 landing  rights  or  licensing  adjudications  or  unrelated,  one-  off  coordinations  with  other 
 administrations. 

 The  Commission  has  already  allocated  spectrum  for  this  purpose,  effective  April  1,2007.  See  Redesignation  of  the  17.7-  19.7  GHz  Frequency  Band,  15  FCC  Rcd  13430  (2000).  DIRECTV 
 currently  has  applications  pending  for  the  use  of  this  spectrum. 

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 For  example,  SES  Americom,  Inc.  (  SES)  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  W.  L.,  6  in  between  U.  S.  assignments  at  101  W.  L.  and  110  W.  L.  -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  12.2  million  U.  S.  customers.  Whatever  the 
 claimed  benefits  of  SESs  proposal,  DIRECTV  has  shown  in  its  filings  in  connection  with  the 
 SES  Petition  that  accommodating  SESs  specific  tweener  satellite  proposed  in  that  filing 
 would  reduce  significantly  current  local  channel  service  being  provided  from  DIRECTV 
 satellites  and  would  preclude  entirely  DIRECTV  from  deploying  any  additional  high-  power  spot 
 beam  satellites  to  increase  local-  into-  local  service  ~overage.~  Thus,  if  SESs  satellite  were 
 deployed  as  proposed,  the  public  would  be  deprived  of  the  benefits  of  increased  choice,  lower 
 prices,  or  both  8  as  a  result  of  the  inability  of  DIRECTV  to  provide  such  expanded  local  channel 
 service.  A  rulemaking  proceeding  will  provide  the  Commission  with  the  fully-  developed  record 
 necessary  to  make  an  informed  determination  as  to  whether  and  on  what  terms  such  a  tweener 
 satellite  could  serve  the  U.  S.  market  consistent  with  the  larger  public  interest  -  an  analysis  that 
 transcends  any  individual  coordination  or  market  access  issue. 
 As  to  the  substance,  DIRECTV  has  identified  in  the  DIRECTV  Petition  certain  key  public 
 policies  that  should  guide  the  Commissions  decisionmaking  process  with  respect  to  the 
 introduction  of  short-  spaced  DBS  satellites  at  12  GHz.  These  are:  (I  )  the  protection  of  existing 

 SES  Americom,  Inc.,  Petition  for  Declaratory  Ruling  To  Serve  the  US.  Market  Using  BSS  Spectrum  fiom  the  105.5  O  W.  L.  Orbital  Location,  Petition  for  Declaratory  Ruling,  SAT-  PDR-  20020425-  0007  I 
 at  1  (filed  Apr.  25,2002)  (  SES  Petition);  see  Public  Notice  at  1  . 
 DIRECTV  incorporates  by  reference  all  of  its  filings  made  in  connection  with  File  No.  SAT-  PDR- 

 Hughes-  News  Corp.  Decision  at  f  i  333. 

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 services  and  infrastructure  investments  by  operational  DBS  systems  using  the  12  GHz  band,  and 
 (2)  the  preservation  of  the  technical  flexibility  required  for  such  operational  DBS  systems  to 
 continue  to  grow  and  innovate  as  they  strive  to  provide  vigorous  competition  to  incumbent  cable 
 television  systems. 
 This  second  principle  is  especially  critical.  As  the  DIRECTV  Petition  illustrates,  while  it 
 can  be  shown  that  it  is  technically  feasible  to  accommodate  tweener  satellites  --  whether  by  using 
 larger  receive  antennas  or  allowing  additional  interference  to  existing  nine  degree-  spaced 
 satellites,  or  both  --  the  more  important  issue  is  the  constraints  that  tweener  satellites  would 
 impose  on  all  future  U.  S.  ITU  BSS  Plan  modifications  at  U.  S.  BSS  Plan  assignments  less  than 
 nine  degrees  away.  If  U.  S.  DBS  operators  are  forced  into  agreements  with  foreign 
 administrations  to  protect  foreign  tweener  satellites  from  future  U.  S.  modifications,  there  is  a 
 serious  danger  of  precluding  the  deployment  of  local  channel  spot  beams  on  additional 
 frequencies  (those  not  filed  with  the  ITU  before  the  tweeners),  since  it  would  be  difficult  for  the 
 high-  power  spot  beams  to  meet  any  interference  criterion  previously  established.  It  could  also  be 
 very  difficult  for  DBS  operators  to  deploy  higher  power  CONUS  satellites  that  would  allow 
 advanced  coding  and  much  higher  capacities  (bits/  Hz).  Thus,  the  fundamental  point  of  the 
 DIRECTV  Petition  on  the  merits  is  that  any  attempt  to  accommodate  tweener  satellite  systems  at 
 12  GHz  in  the  U.  S.  portion  of  the  geostationary  orbital  arc  must  not  be  permitted  to  stifle  the 
 important  public  interest  benefits  that  DIRECTV  and  other  U.  S.  DBS  operators  currently  are 
 pursuing  and  plan  to  pursue,  such  as  the  continued  expansion  of  satellite-  delivered  local 
 broadcast  channels,  the  continued  rollout  of  HDTV  programming,  and  the  continued 
 development  and  introduction  of  innovative  new  satellites  and  services  by  operating  DBS 
 systems. 

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 The  DIXECTV  Petition  outlines  a  non-  exclusive  list  of  specific  considerations  and 
 proposals  on  which  the  Commission  has  now  solicited  comment  by  reference  in  the  Public 
 Notice.  And  the  DIRECTV  Petition  observes  that  the  possibilities  that  are  within  the 
 Commissions  grasp  are  significantly  more  complex  than  the  essentially  binary  questions  posed 
 by  recent  applications  and  filings  such  as  the  SES  Petition.  Any  authorization  of  tweener 
 satellites  will  necessarily  require  the  balancing  of  important  considerations  such  as  service 
 availability,  channel  capacity,  equipment  cost,  consumer  acceptance,  and  market  structure.  And 
 among  the  technical  parameters  that  can  vary  are  orbital  spacing,  availability,  data  rate, 
 protection  to  nine-  degree  satellites,  protection  from  nine-  degree  satellites  and  other  tweener 
 satellites,  and  receive  antenna  size.   
 Only  after  careful  and  thorough  consideration  of  these  tradeoffs  will  the  Commission  be 
 in  a  position  to  predict  whether  moving  to  any  form  of  reduced  orbital  spacing  would  serve  the 
 public  interest.  The  ITU,  after  more  than  five  years  of  study  by  industry  experts,  revised  the  BSS 
 Regions  1  and  3  Plan  twice  (1  997  and  2000)  in  order  to  provide  more  assignments  to  the 
 administrations  of  those  regions.  As  a  result  of  these  studies,  it  was  determined  that,  in  general, 
 more  than  six-  degree  spacing  between  co-  or  adjacent-  coverage,  co-  frequency  assignments  was 
 required  to  avoid  undue  interference  --  with  60  cm  receive  antennas.  Analogously,  with  45  cm 
 antennas  ubiquitously  deployed  in  the  United  States  and  throughout  Region  2,  a  minimum 
 satellite  spacing  of  7.55  degrees  would  be  required  to  afford  the  same  interference  protection. 
 This  obviously  is  a  far  cry  from  4.5  degree  spacing,  and,  at  a  minimum,  suggests  that  a 
 tremendous  amount  of  technical  work  and  analysis  must  occur  before  any  form  of  reduced 
 orbital  spacing  is  actually  implemented  in  the  United  States  or  Region  2.  Furthermore,  as  the 

 To  illustrate  this  point,  four  parametric  charts  in  the  DIRECTV  Petition  show  trade-  offs  that  can  be  9 
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 DIRECTV  Petition  has  observed,  it  should  not  be  expected  that  tweener  satellites  in  any  scenario 
 should  or  can  be  afforded  the  same  operating  conditions  as  systems  already  operating  from  the 
 original  United  States  Region  2  BSS  Plan  assignments  (or  modifications  to  these  assignments). 
 DIRECTV  appreciates  the  Commissions  commitment  to  explore  the  intensive  and 
 efficient  use  of  the  spectrum  and  to  promote  MVPD  competition.  At  present,  the  12  GHz 
 band  is  being  utilized  intensively  by  U.  S.  DBS  operators  today,  and  is  already  asked  to 
 accommodate  four  different  services  -  DBS,  non-  geostationary  satellite  (  NGSO), 
 Multichannel  Multipoint  Video  Distribution  and  Data  Service  (  MVDDS)  and  fixed  point-  to- 
 point  microwave.  Before  imposing  the  further  constraints  necessary  to  accommodate  tweener 
 satellites,  the  Commission  should  proceed  deliberately,  and,  at  a  minimum,  conduct  a 
 comprehensive  rulemaking  proceeding  to  determine  whether  and  under  what  conditions 
 introducing  tweener  satellites  into  the  12  GHz  band  would  be  a  wise  policy  decision. 
 Respectfully  submitted, 
 DIRECTV,  INC. 
 By:  -  /S  I  -  Gary  M.  Epstein 
 James  H.  Barker  LATHAM  22  WATKINS  LLP 
 555  Eleventh  Street,  N.  W.  Washington,  D.  C.  20005 
 Phone:  (202)  637-  2200 

 made  to  facilitate  less  than  nine-  degree  spaced  satellites  and  still  protect  existing  DBS  services. 
 See  DIRECTV  Petition  at  16-  18.  The  Commission  has  held  that  even  when  a  foreign  satellite  service  provider  has  ITU  priority,  existing  U.  S.  satellite  systems  are  not  required  to  change  their  licensed 

 operating  parameters  to  accommodate  additional  non-  U.  S.  licensed  systems.  Pacific  Century  Group,  Inc.,  Letter  of  Intent  as  a  Foreign  Satellite  Operator  to  Provide  Fixed  Satellite  Services  in  the  Ka- 
 band  to  the  United  States,  Order,  16  FCC  Rcd  14356  at  7  18  (2001);  see  also,  Second  Round  Assignment  of  Geostationary  Satellite  Orbit  Locations  to  Fixed  Satellite  Service  Space  Stations  in  the 
 Ka  Band,  Order,  16  FCC  Rcd  14389  at  7  26  (2001). 
 Public  Notice  at  2. 

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