The FCC's satellite spectrum abundance order is final, and this update picks up where our September Insight on the draft left off. Commissioners voted 3-0 on Sept. 30, and the text released a day later is not quite the draft we analyzed.
SpaceX's 11th-hour push to demote geostationary (GSO) operators in newly opened Ku-band spectrum at 12.7–13.25 GHz won in the air and at sea but lost on land. GSO terminals on aircraft and ships become secondary to non-geostationary (NGSO) downlinks to user terminals such as Starlink's. GSO gateways keep their priority.
The FCC also deleted its own estimate of what the spectrum would be worth to wireless carriers, after CTIA and SpaceX attacked it from opposite sides. Along with the carrier figure, the FCC nixed the comparison against that average and the option of prioritizing terrestrial use. Its cost-benefit analysis now weighs only two choices: open the bands to satellites or do nothing.
The final order also turns the draft's open questions about more Ku-, Ka- and D-band spectrum into formal proposals, including one that could open Iridium's feeder-link spectrum to broadband operators.
And it added a nationwide license for V-band gateways at 42–42.5 GHz, at SpaceX's request.
The core of the draft survives: 1,050 MHz of new satellite spectrum and an economic case built on SpaceX's numbers. Of the seven changes SpaceX requested on Sept. 21, the FCC adopted five in whole or in part.
The order is adopted but not yet in effect. Most of its rules take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, which had not happened as of Oct. 4, and parties have 30 days from publication to ask the FCC to reconsider.
