Aug 12, 2020
Today on the Constellations podcast we will discuss the accelerated roll-out of 5G and the role of satellites in the C-band relocation effort. 5G cellular services hold the promise of connecting everything, everyone and unleashing massive amounts of bandwidth for new and innovative applications. To drive America’s leadership in 5G, the FCC is accelerating the roll-out by repurposing the C-band spectrum, which is thought to be optimal for 5G services.
Intelsat is one of the satellite operators that has used the
entire band and now has agreed to mobilize its operations to
promptly relocate to a different portion of the band in support of
the 5G roll-out. To tackle this unprecedented and challenging
transition plan, Intelsat has put together a team of more than 50
employees focused on this complex clearing initiative. The team is
working to successfully and quickly transition current users, while
maintaining high-quality, uninterrupted broadcast to more than 100
million American homes and businesses. Intelsat also plans to
build and launch multiple new satellites to replace C-band capacity
being transitioned to 5G cellular network services.
With us today to shed some light on their C-band relocation plan is
Tom McNamara, Vice President of C-Band Transition Management for
Intelsat. Tom has over 20 years of experience as an
operations executive.