The FCC voted to revise its satellite spectrum sharing rules to promote market entry, regulatory certainty, and spectrum efficiency. The Report and Order (R&O) released Friday refines the Commission’s non-geostationary satellite orbit, fixed-satellite service (NGSO FSS) spectrum sharing regime.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel says the changes “allow first movers to enjoy the advantage they’ve earned by daring to think big and take on risk, while also opening our skies to more competition.”
The agency says the updates will provide clarity regarding sharing between systems licensed in different processing rounds, granting primary spectrum access to systems approved earlier, while enabling new entrants to participate in an established, cooperative spectrum sharing structure. Specifically, the FCC states the R&O clarifies “certain details of the degraded throughput methodology used in compatibility analyses by NGSO FSS system licensees authorized through later processing rounds to show they can operate compatibly with, and protect, systems authorized through earlier processing rounds.”
According to the text, “The new rules adopt a 3 percent time-weighted average throughput degradation as a long-term interference protection criterion and a 0.4 percent absolute increase in link unavailability as a short-term interference protection criterion. The R&O declines to adopt additional protection metrics or an aggregate limit on interference from later-round NGSO FSS systems into earlier-round NGSO FSS systems.”
The Commission dismissed and denied a petition for reconsideration filed by OneWeb and affirmed the Commission’s decision in 2023 to adopt a 10-year sunset period as a companion to the new inter-round protection requirement.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
Reader Interactions