By Gianluca Lo Nostro
(Reuters) – The CEO of European satellite company SES said on Wednesday it will be up to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to decide on freeing up additional C-band spectrum that could be allocated to Space X’s Starlink.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will consider on Thursday whether it will move forward with plans to auction off new spectrum.
C-band is a segment of the spectrum used by satellite service providers to broadcast video and radio content to 120 million households in the United States.
Europe-based SES and Intelsat, set to merge later in 2025, have historically been the largest holders of these coveted frequencies that are also instrumental in 5G deployment for wireless carriers.
“It’s really up to the FCC to decide how they want to allocate that spectrum, knowing that their main objective is to drive incremental revenue to the treasury to fund a lot of the initiatives that the Trump administration is driving,” SES’s chief executive Adel Al-Saleh said during a post-earnings call.
SES has made billions of euros in recent years through C-band clearing activities in the U.S. and may benefit from new openings after acquiring Intelsat.
However, their leadership in the market could be diminished due to emerging competitors such as Elon Musk’s Space X.
In January, Space X’s vice president of satellite policy, David Goldman, suggested in a letter to FCC Secretary Marlene Dortch that the C-band should be shared among other players after the SES-Intelsat merger.
“Technically, you could work in that spectrum with many different applications, but it needs to be designed and coordinated very well,” Al-Saleh said.
CONTRACT WINS DRIVE PROFIT BEAT
Earlier on Wednesday, the Luxembourg-based satellite operator reported an 8.6% rise in its quarterly core profit, well above market expectations, supported by strong commercial activity with big contract wins including with NATO and the U.S. government.
But Europe’s legacy satellite operators, already buried under billions of euros of debt, are being challenged by the rising popularity of Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper.
Unlike Starlink’s 7,000 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites bringing internet access to consumers, SES manages a multi-orbit network of around 70 geostationary (GEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites that provide connectivity for a wide range of markets including aviation, maritime, military and governments.
The company’s Paris-listed shares were trading 5% higher by 1058 GMT.
($1 = 0.9534 euros)
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi)
