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 FEDERAL  COMMUNICATIONS  COMMISSION  FCC  03-  102 
 SEPARATE  STATEMENT  OF  COMMISSIONER  JONATHAN  S.  ADELSTEIN 


 Re:  Amendment  of  the  Commission’s  Space  Station  Licensing  Rules  and  Policies;  First  Report  and  Order  and  Further  Notice  of  Proposed  Rule  Making;  IB  Docket  No.  02-  34 
 I  believe  that  our  actions  today  will  revolutionize  our  approach  to  satellite  licensing  by  adding  much  needed  regulatory  certainty  to  a  process  that  recently  has  been  encumbered  with  delays  and 
 uncertainty.  I  recognize  that  our  decision  may  not  be  embraced  by  everyone  within  the  satellite  industry.  But  just  as  the  industry  has  evolved  over  the  past  two  decades  to  literal  and  figurative 
 heights,  I  believe  that  the  satellite  community  also  will  grow  to  embrace  the  certainty  offered  by  our  revised  licensing  rules. 


 Change  can  be  difficult.  But  something  must  be  done  to  improve  the  current  system  that  governs  the  Commission’s  approach  to  satellite  licensing.  We  have  processing  rounds  that  are  measured 
 in  years  not  months,  and  applications  that  were  filed  in  1997,  but  still  have  not  yet  even  been  accepted  for  filing.  However,  this  is  not  an  exercise  to  point  fingers  or  assess  blame  –  we  simply 
 have  a  licensing  approach  adopted  20  years  ago,  when  the  commercial  satellite  industry  was  not  as  developed  and  technologically  advanced  as  it  is  today.  Procedures  that  were  appropriate  then 
 to  nurture  a  relatively  new  commercial  industry  are  no  longer  needed  today.  Indeed,  these  very  same  rules  now  have  the  opposite  effect  of  stifling  technological  growth  and  development  of  new 
 satellite  systems. 
 I  thus  welcome  the  change  to  our  satellite  licensing  rules  and  commend  the  International  Bureau  for  embarking  on  this  often-  challenging  process.  The  Bureau  has  devoted  to  this  endeavor  a  great 
 deal  of  resources  and  thought,  which  are  such  important  components  of  our  rulemaking  procedure. 


 With  these  changes,  however,  I  have  one  lingering  concern  that  I  hope  we  have  successfully  addressed  in  today’s  item.  To  limit  the  filing  of  speculative  applications,  the  Commission 
 previously  has  relied  on  an  anti-  trafficking  rule  in  the  satellite  service,  which  prohibited  the  sale  of  “bare  licenses,”  except  those  licenses  obtained  through  a  competitive  bidding  process.  I 
 recognize  that  elimination  of  this  rule  may  facilitate  the  development  of  a  secondary  market,  which  can  play  such  an  important  role  in  expediting  service  to  the  public.  However,  in 
 eliminating  this  rule,  we  potentially  also  enable  speculators  to  reap  financial  gains  from  filing  applications  for  the  principal  purpose  of  speculation  or  other  gaming  of  our  revised  satellite 
 licensing  process. 
 Rightly,  we  have  adopted  and  strengthened  a  number  of  important  provisions  to  minimize  the  possibility  of  such  an  occurrence,  which  I  think  everyone  recognizes  is  anathema  to  the 
 Commission’s  approach  to  spectrum  policy.  In  particular,  we  have  adopted  a  provision  that  specifically  enunciates  the  Commission’s  discretion  to  review  the  assignments  and  transfers  of 
 control  of  space  station  licenses  to  determine  whether  the  initial  license  was  obtained  in  good  faith  with  the  intent  to  construct  a  satellite  system.  I  am  hopeful  that,  taken  together,  all  of  these 
 provisions  put  applicants  on  notice  that  our  revised  satellite  process  is  intended  to  promote  technology  and  innovation,  not  the  filing  of  speculative  applications. 
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