Attachment Ex Parte Letter

Ex Parte Letter

LETTER submitted by Greg Ek-Collins

Ex Parte

2006-05-24

This document pretains to SES-STA-20060308-00388 for Special Temporal Authority on a Satellite Earth Station filing.

IBFS_SESSTA2006030800388_515035

                                  May 24, 2006
Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20554
Re: Obstacles to Delivery of Next-Generation Satellite Communications
Services
      (File Nos. SES-LFS-20050826-01175; SES-MFS-20051122-01614; SES-STA-20060307-
      00374; SES-STA-20060310-00419; SES-LFS-20050930-01352; SES-MFS-20060118-
      00050; SES-STA-20060308-00388; SES-STA-20060313-00430; SES-LFS-20051011-
      01396; SES-STA-20060314-00438; SES-MFS-20051207-01709; SES-STA-20060307-
      00372; SES-LFS-20051123-01634; SES-STA-20060316-00454; SES-MFS-20051202-
      01665; SES-STA-20060307-00373; SES-LFS-20060303-00343; SES-STA-20060315-
      00445)

Dear Commissioner Tate:
We are writing to remind you that so many public safety organizations and
branches of government within Florida rely on voice and data services provided
by Mobile Satellite Ventures, L.P. (“MSV”). Florida heavily values satellite
communications, and we equally value our communications during disasters,
such as the hurricanes that are seasonal here in Florida. During natural
disasters, MSV provides reliable, critical communications to key state agencies
when other communications networks and infrastructure-such as telephone and
cellular service-were destroyed by the hurricane or other disaster. MSV’s mobile
satellite services helped us save lives and bring relief to tens of thousands of
people. Their two-way satellite communications made the difference in our ability
to assess, respond to and recover from the devastating effects of natural
disasters.
Our department is here to serve all of Orange County, Florida, tourist destination
of the world, and prides itself on our ability to respond quickly in emergency
situations. Obviously a large part of our emergency response is our ability to
communicate during emergency situations.
We have recently learned about MSV’s next-generation hybrid system, which
could begin operation as early as 2009. This new terrestrial-satellite system will
allow our first responders to easily shift to satellite service whenever local land
facilities are overloaded or destroyed, as well as receive broadband access over
the same handheld device. It will also provide the only mobile broadband service
available to many rural and remote areas. Delivery of this next-generation
satellite system, however, may be hampered by two obstacles: return of some L
band spectrum it loaned to Inmarsat; and the existing, inefficient distribution of
the L band spectrum among the five parties that currently control the L band
spectrum in North America.


As another hurricane season approaches, we all continue to assess how we
respond to natural disasters and other homeland security situations. We should
continue to foster and support new developments in satellite communications
and ensure that this vital tool is available to first responders and other emergency
personnel.
We believe that the Commission can play an important role in making this
possible by: redistributing the L band spectrum among the parties so that their
shares are contiguous and, therefore, capable of delivering broadband service
via satellite; and requiring the return of loaned spectrum to MSV. We respectfully
request that the Commission take steps to alleviate these obstacles so that MSV
and others can make their next-generation satellite services available to us in a
timely, efficient manner.
                            Very truly yours,


                                                                      Greg Ek-
                                                                      Collins
                            Communications and Warning Coordinator
                            Orange County Emergency Management
                            PO Box 5879
                            Winter Park, FL 32793
                            407-836-9805
                            -



Document Created: 2006-07-26 14:45:18
Document Modified: 2006-07-26 14:45:18

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