§342 Process for Issuing Qualified Carrier Certification

Summary

The FCC must give a qualified-carrier certificate if it finds a satellite TV company provides local service in every designated market area (DMA) under the statutory license. For any DMA the company did not serve as of the date of enactment of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010, the company must show its satellite beams are designed and predicted by the manufacturer’s pre-launch tests to deliver a good quality signal to at least 90% of the households in each such DMA (using the most recent U.S. Census data). The company also must show there is no clear evidence of any satellite or sub-system failure after launch that would stop it from meeting the 90% requirement. To get the certificate the company must file an affidavit listing DMAs it served as of the Act’s enactment and, for other DMAs, provide each DMA’s ID and receive-facility location, household counts and maps based on the latest census, the manufacturer’s pre-launch EIRP maps predicting 90% coverage, an affidavit about no post-launch failures, and any other engineering or DMA information the FCC needs. The FCC will post the request for 30 days for public comment and must decide within 90 days. A carrier that gets qualified status must file another affidavit 30 months later saying it still meets the rules. Definitions: Designated market area — the DMA term used in section 122. Good quality satellite signal — a signal designed for at least 99.7% availability using normal customer antennas, using the carrier’s top-100 DMA prediction method, treating broadcast stations equally in multiplexing, and not carrying more video signals per transponder than the greatest number used in equivalent top-100 transponders; the top 100 DMAs are those listed by Nielsen at the time of application.