DirecTV, Dish Network, Hughes and EchoStar emphasized to...

DirecTV, Dish Network, Hughes and EchoStar emphasized to the FCC that changes to fee categories must reflect changes in law and regulation, and “must correspond with the number of full time employees performing specified regulatory functions for particular classes of payors,” they said in an ex parte filing in dockets 13-140, 12-201 and 08-65 (http://bit.ly/1bL8AID). The cable operators’ “parity” arguments are defective “because the commission does not regulate these two industries equally,” it said. In a separate ex parte filing in those dockets, SES, Inmarsat and Telesat cautioned the FCC against requiring non-U.S.-licensed satellite operators serving the U.S. market to pay space station regulatory fees. Foreign-licensed satellites don’t obtain Title III licenses “or receive the benefits that come with grant of a U.S. space station license,” the ex parte said (http://bit.ly/1997qZT). The only commission efforts that are solely focused on foreign satellites involve processing requests for market access, “a one-time expenditure of resources that the satellite companies argued does not justify a recurring regulatory fee,” it said. The FCC’s earth station licensing database doesn’t permit determination of whether an earth station is communicating with foreign-licensed satellites, it said. During a separate meeting, Intelsat supported reassessing fees for indirect full-time employees “that rarely work on behalf of satellite operators,” it said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/IQf4Mw). It also reiterated that regulatory fees should be collected from non-U.S. satellite operators with U.S. market access, it said. All the satellite companies met last week with staff from the Enforcement and International bureaus and the Office of Managing Director.