SES files with the FCC before the C-band vote
What happened
SES S.A. (via Hogan Lovells counsel Michele C. Farquhar) filed two new FCC ECFS documents: (1) a Notice of Ex Parte, docket GN 25-59 (Upper C-band, 3.98-4.2GHz), "SES 7.10.26 FCC Ex Parte.pdf," referencing a meeting held July 10; (2) Reply Comments, docket 25-157 ("Modernizing Spectrum Sharing for Satellite Broadband" — the Space Bureau's GSO-reference-links implementation docket for the EPFD/GSO Ku-band rule, Order 26-26), titled "SES - GSO Ref Links Reply Comments," filer "SES S.A. and Affiliates." Both are SES's first new FCC filing activity since the clean negatives logged in the 07-13/07-14 briefs (last prior SES/SpaceX ECFS activity was June 30/25 respectively). Full PDF content unread this cycle — fcc.gov's ECFS document server returned HTTP 000 (curl) and HTTP 503 (WebFetch) on all 4 direct-fetch attempts; only ECFS metadata (filer, docket, dates, document title) is confirmed.
Read-across for SES
First confirmed SES lobbying activity ahead of the July 22 FCC Open Meeting, which votes on both the Upper C-band Report & Order (SES's ~$6B incentive-split question, still UNCONFIRMED per priors) and the separate Part 100 Space Modernization item. The GSO reference-links reply is SES's first on-record engagement with the Order 26-26 implementation docket, filed one day after that rule's July 13 effective date — direct evidence SES is contesting or shaping the statistical GSO-protection standard that lets NGSO systems (Starlink/Amazon Leo) degrade its GEO fleet's link quality. Existence and timing are confirmed and material; substance is not.
As the brief filed it
[AGE: 13h] SES filed a new FCC ex parte (Upper C-band docket 25-59) and reply comments (GSO-reference-links docket 25-157) 8 days before the July 22 vote — first SES filing activity since June 30, substance unread (fcc.gov blocked).