Intelsat Spectrum Payout Stalls in Congress, Pushing It to FCC

Satellite companies Intelsat SA and SES SA may now have to wait for a U.S. regulator to decide how much they should be compensated for diverting some of their airwaves to mobile users, after Congress failed earlier this week to pass a measure that would allow a lucrative payout.

But that regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, hasn’t said whether the companies should get paid at all.

Disagreements stalled a Republican measure to let the Luxembourg-based companies share in almost half the revenue expected from the airwaves sale with the rest going to the U.S. Treasury. The language didn’t make ...