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.