Mobile satellite operators should benefit from a Federal Communications Commission decision to let them add wireless capabilities as ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) services.

High-profile business failures by mobile satellite services that built multi-billion dollar voice communications systems may have played a key role in sensitizing the FCC to the need to approve new flexible spectrum policies.

Specifically, the FCC now will permit certain mobile satellite services providers in three frequency bands to provide an ATC to offer affordable mobile services on land, in the air and over oceans without using any additional spectrum resources beyond what already has been allocated, commission officials said. The three spectrum bands covered by the commission’s decision are the 2GHz, Big LEO and L bands.