WASHINGTON-A federal appeals court has rejected a mobile-phone industry request to consolidate challenges to Federal Communications Commission decisions regarding awarding licenses to mobile satellite service applicants and allowing them to use satellite frequencies for land-based communications that could compete with cellular carriers.
“Consolidation . is unwarranted because the issues in the two cases are not intertwined, and consolidation would delay resolution” of the MSS licensing appeal, stated the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Tuesday.
The court issued a separate order establishing a briefing schedule for the MSS licensing appeal, setting oral argument for May 7, 2004.
Meantime, the FCC has yet to act on petitions for reconsideration of a decision authorizing the eight original MSS licensees to integrate an “ancillary terrestrial component” into satellite networks. Some satellite executives claim the financially troubled MSS industry cannot survive without ATC authority.
AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Verizon Wireless had asked the court to consolidate the two appeals, arguing the cases are inseparable. The two carriers claim the FCC granted MSS permits on a satellite-only basis without resolving questions about the economic viability of the licensing scheme and then abruptly reversed course shortly thereafter to allow licensees to mix satellite and terrestrial use of 2 GHz MSS spectrum.
Mobile-phone carriers contend the FCC sidestepped auction law by enabling MSS to commercially exploit valuable spectrum for terrestrial use that mobile-phone carriers and others have paid billions of dollars for since 1993, when Congress authorized auctions for wireless licensing.
Global satellite operators are exempt from spectrum auctions.
