Satellite, Video Industries Struggle for Air : Technology: NASA says it needs waves regulators had planned to allocate to developers of a lower-cost alternative to cable TV.
A promising new video technology, which federal regulators backed a year ago to encourage a lower-cost alternative to cable TV, may be stalled because of a battle with the satellite industry over scarce airwave space.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration says communications satellites will need the same part of the radio airwaves that was planned for use by the video service. Federal regulators may decide as early as this month whether the new video technology will have to share the airwave space or whether other alternatives must be pursued.
The dispute between NASA and proponents of the fledgling video technology, known as local multi-point distribution service, could foreshadow the bitter battles that are likely to emerge over the valuable radio spectrum. The Federal Communications Commission is preparing this summer to conduct the nation’s first auction of the airwaves for a new generation of wireless communications services.
LMDS mimics the operation of cellular phone systems by using an array of super-high-frequency microwave transceivers. It can broadcast into consumers’ television sets up to 50 channels of cable TV as well as local telephone service, video conferencing and interactive TV.
NASA has been joined in its fight for the airwave space by a number of satellite operators, including Calling Communications Corp. and Hughes Aircraft Co., which are seeking as much as half the disputed radio spectrum to deploy their own new high-tech video and communications services.
“When the commission first proposed authorizing the spectrum for LMDS, there wasn’t any existing use of spectrum by satellite users and it was an easy solution to accommodate a new technology,” said Tom W. Davidson, a Washington communications lawyer who represents Calling Communications, based in West Covina.
But as other parts of the radio spectrum have been gobbled up by new users such as cellular telephones and now LMDS, Davidson said, “satellite systems have nowhere else to go” to deploy new technology.
Added Charles Force, associate administrator for space communications at NASA: “It appears that there is a significant possibility for interference with LMDS from satellite uplinks; this was no secret to the FCC.” Force suggested delaying nationwide LMDS service for four years so the satellite industry can develop technology to accommodate LMDS without interference.
Years ago, the government allocated the disputed 27.5-to-30-gigahertz radio spectrum band for fixed satellite use. (A hertz is a single unit of frequency in an electromagnetic spectrum that ranges from radio and TV waves through X-rays and cosmic rays.) But that part of the spectrum remained unused until August, when NASA launched an experimental satellite that will use those frequencies for advanced communications systems.
By that time, LMDS was already in operation on a trial basis in Brighton Beach, N.Y. The service was given provisional approval by the FCC in December, 1992, after a Freehold, N.J., company named Cellularvision patented the technology.
Cellularvision said it will need as much as 80% of the 2.5 gigahertz of disputed airwaves for LMDS service. The FCC, believing that LMDS can coexist with satellite use, signaled its intent in December to authorize nationwide deployment of LMDS, which could bring the government an estimated $1 million or more for each of the 489 local licenses that would be auctioned.
“There’s enough flexibility in the system so that our service won’t interfere with theirs,” said Shant Hovnanian, chief executive of Cellularvision. “Their beam is going straight up into the sky; ours is going straight down from an office building. There’s no way they will interfere with each other.”
FCC officials could not be reached for comment. But industry sources say the agency has indicated it will take up the issue at its January meetings. It may decide whether satellites can share the spectrum with LMDS, or it may force LMDS to find another part of the spectrum--not an easy task as the airwaves become more crowded.
“This technology could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” Hovnanian said, “It could take off like cellular telephone technology did” in the 1980s.
