AlphaStar Presents New XM-Sirius Wrinkle

Satellite-uplink firm with roots in Reagan's Star Wars program makes leased-access pitch to FCC.

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/17/2008 6:53:00 PM

There is a new wrinkle in the already prunelike process of the Federal Communications Commission's year-plus review of the proposed XM Satelllite Radio-Sirius Satellite Radio merger.

In a letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, satellite-uplink company AlphaStar, a company built to track Soviet satellites and missiles, said it had the satellite backbone to provide the independent channels the FCC is considering carving out of the merged company as a condition of approving the deal, if it does so.

Martin has proposed requiring a 24-channel set-aside, or about a combined 8% of XM/Sirius' capacity. Others, including a number of Democratic legislators, have called for more channels, and based only on a percentage of capacity to account for the addition of more channels with the advancement of digital compression.

Billing itself as built to the military specifications as part of President Ronald Reagan's proposed Star Wars program and as one of the first direct-to-home satellite-TV companies, AlphaStar said the FCC should definitely condition the merger on a set-aside, and of at least 20% of capacity.

AlphaStar billed itself as one of the "very few" companies in the satellite space "prepared, capable, staffed and equipped to facilitate the administration of a leased-access merger condition." And it promised that if the FCC picked it to adminstrate the set-aside, it would lease the channels only to minorities, women, small businesses and noncommercial programmers.

AlphaStar said it could also get the money if the FCC decided to put administering the leased-access set-aside out for bid.