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Tag Archive for 'ICO'

ICO reiterates opposition to EC S-Band allocation award, continues to ‘assess its options’

May 18, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Not that it adds that much to the story, but - following the award of the European S-Band frequencies to Solaris Mobile/Inmarsat - ICO, which was passed over, has reiterated its opposition to the whole allocation process - officially known as Decision No. 626/2008/EC.

In a statement released last week, ICO said it was “challenging this process, having initiated legal proceedings in September 2008 in the European Court of First Instance seeking the annulment of Decision No. 626/2008/EC of the European Parliament.”

ICO argues that the Decision - essentially the one that gave rise to the European beauty contest - is illegal and should be annulled “pursuant to Articles 230 and 231 of the Treaty establishing the European Community”. ICO noted that as these legal proceedings had not been completed by the October 2008 deadline to submit applications to the EC to provide mobile satellite services in the S-Band above Europe, it decided to go ahead and file an application anyway, ‘without prejudice.’

Michael Corkery, acting chief executive officer of ICO, is quoted in the statement as saying: “ICO has spent years clearing the S-band worldwide, has an operational satellite using this frequency band and is registered in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Master International Frequency Register (MIFR). We believe the just-concluded EU process jeopardizes years of international cooperation and coordination that has governed satellite communications worldwide.” Corkery concluded that “ICO will continue assessing its options in defending its international legal rights.”

This doesn’t give any clue as to whether ICO will be asking for a judicial review of Ofcom’s proposal to recommend that the ITU allocations referred to above be rescinded, but it’s only got until the end of this week.

Posted in Digital Satellite and Mobile TV. 0 Comments

Solaris Mobile S-Band mobile satellite services threatened by ‘anomaly’ on Eutelsat W2A bird

May 14, 2009 by Barry Flynn

There’s never a dull moment in the continuing European S-Band saga!

Solaris Mobile - the Astra/Eutelsat JV hotly tipped to share the S-Band frequencies with Inmarsat (when the EC finally makes up its mind) - released a statement this morning saying that the W2A satellite carrying the S-Band payload, which was successfully launched on April 3 - has some sort of problem.

Here’s the full text:

“Solaris Mobile and its shareholders Eutelsat Communications and SES Astra announce that the current evaluation of the in-orbit tests of the S-band payload on the W2A satellite launched on April 3 indicate an anomaly which requires further tests. Additional analysis is consequently planned with the satellite’s prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space, in order to identify the cause of the anomaly and to fully assess the extent of the S-band payload’s capability to provide mobile satellite services to the European marketplace. Solaris Mobile remains confident of its ability to meet the commitments made according to the European Selection and Authorisation Process, under which it has applied for S-band spectrum to provide these services. The company is evaluating a range of options to compensate for this situation and expects to make further announcements in due course.”

Regardless of whether the anomaly turns out to be trivial or not, it comes at a sensitive time: as mentioned above, the ‘European Selection and Authorisation Process’ for allocating the S-Band frequencies, which Solaris Mobile wants to use for DVB-SH mobile broadcasting, has yet to formally announce the result of its deliberations.

With one of the other candidates, ICO, pursuing legal action in the European Court of First Instance over the whole procedure at the same time, there’s every prospect of a significant further delay, at least. At worst, Solaris Mobile might get passed over, with the frequencies being awarded to someone else (e.g. Inmarsat plus ICO).

The critical date is May 23rd - the date by which ICO has to decide whether to ask for a judicial review of a previous decision by Ofcom to deprive it of its existing ITU S-Band frequencies or not. This in turn will trigger Ofcom’s decision on whether to go ahead and ask the ITU to relieve ICO of its previous S-Band frequency allocati0ns.

Connected TV will keep you posted…..

**Update**Reuters has just released a story that the EC has today awarded the S-Band frequencies to Solaris Mobile and Inmarsat regardless of the above-mentioned glitch. Possibly the EU announcement was therefore already in the system before the W2A anomaly was known about. So the scene is now set for a possible challenge from ICO….

Posted in Digital Satellite and Mobile TV. 2 Comments

Ofcom postpones advice to ITU recommending cancellation of ICO S-Band assignments

March 20, 2009 by Barry Flynn

US satellite operator ICO’s furious reaction to Ofcom’s decision to advise the ITU to cancel its S-Band assignments (see here) has resulted in the UK regulator backing off - if only for the moment.

Yesterday, Ofcom posted a note on its site saying that ICO had followed up with a letter to the regulator referring to its right to seek a judicial review of the decision.

“In light of this Ofcom considers that it is appropriate for it to refrain from writing to the ITU before the time period for ICO to apply for a judicial review expires, which is 23 May 2009,” its statement ran.

However, the damage to ICO’s EU S-Band bid may already have been done - if the EU was taking ICO’s bid seriously in the first place. There is widespread industry speculation that the EU is poised to announce that the pan-European S-Band award will go jointly to Solaris Mobile and Inmarsat.

Posted in Digital Satellite, Mobile TV and Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Ofcom cripples ICO’s EU S-Band bid, recommends ITU to cancel previous 2GHz assignments

February 27, 2009 by Barry Flynn

The fortunes of the Solaris Mobile project - the JV between satellite operators Astra and Eutelsat which seeks to create a market for mobile satellite services across Europe - received a boost today with an announcement from UK regulator Ofcom that it planned to write to the ITU to recommend cancellation of rival operator ICO’s previous assignments in the S-Band.

In a short statement, the regulator said:

“Following a review of the status of the deployment of the ICO-P mobile satellite system conducted over a three year period involving extensive consultation with ICO Global Communications (ICO), and having carefully considered the representations made by ICO, Ofcom has taken a decision that it will write to the ITU on 17 March to instruct that the ICO-P assignments currently recorded in the ITU Master Register be cancelled.”

Ofcom is responsible for ICO’s spectrum assignments because it is the ITU representative for the Cayman Islands, the offshore tax haven which ICO cites as its base for tax purposes.

Solaris Mobile has been confirmed as an ‘admissible candidate’ by the EC for the S-Band (2GHz) beauty contest, along with ICO Satellite Limited, Inmarsat Ventures Limited, and TerreStar Europe Limited.

The Eutelsat W2A satellite which Solaris plans to use was due to become operational in February 2009, enabling it to claim that it was the only one of the four able to meet “European Commission expectations that cross border Mobile TV services are likely to start in 2009.”

However, Eutelsat recently announced that W2A would be delayed, launching on 28th March.

ICO had previously laid claims to part of the S-Band for its own DVB-SH venture, on the basis of the past award of the frequencies to the company by the ITU. Indeed, in a recent SEC filing, ICO said that it had initiated proceedings in the European Court of First Instance seeking the annulment of the European Parliament decision that had engendered the EC S-Band contest, contending that the decision was illegal and should be annulled because of its own prior claim.

If the ITU now agrees with the Ofcom recommendation, and cancels the ICO registration, those proceedings would now presumably fall, and ICO would have to win the EC beauty contest on its own merits.

As ConnectedTV has previously commented, Solaris Mobile is a firm favourite for the S-Band award, and the Ofcom decision has now served to strengthen that position.

Update 28/02/09

Overnight, ICO has responded furiously to the Ofcom move, saying that it takes “strong exception” to the Ofcom statement, pointing out that ICO F2, the first orbiting satellite in the MEO constellation, was launched in June, 2001 and continues to provide services in the S-Band. ICO goes on to say that its ITU S-Band registrations were the result of “having spent more than a decade and billions of dollars constructing an international satellite system, as well as its continued efforts to further enhance its satellite system.”

ICO added that it had “recently prevailed in a significant legal action against the Boeing companies regarding the fraudulent activity, breach of contract and tortious interference which caused the delays related to the deployment of the remainder of the system. ICO is continuing to defend its international legal rights, including through participation in international regulatory organizations and litigation.”

In other words, the satellite operator is not about to drop its case before the European Court of First Instance, even if Ofcom has just holed it below the water-line.

Posted in Broadband and Digital Satellite. 1 Comment