NGSO Fixed-Satellite Service (Space-to-Earth) Operations in the 17.3-17.8 GHz Band

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 2 and 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[IB Docket No. 22-273; FCC 24-97; FR ID 260367]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>NGSO Fixed-Satellite Service (Space-to-Earth) Operations in the 17.3-17.8 GHz Band</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) adopts rules to permit use of the 17.3-17.7 GHz band by non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) space stations operating in the fixed-satellite service (FSS) in the space-to-Earth (downlink) direction. The <E T="03">Report and Order</E> modifies the United States Table of Frequency Allocations (U.S. Table) to enable NGSO FSS to operate in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band in the downlink direction on a co-primary basis with incumbent services and on a shared, co-primary basis with geostationary satellite orbit (GSO) services. The <E T="03">Report and Order</E> also enables NGSO FSS downlink use of the 17.7-17.8 GHz band on a co-primary basis with GSO services and on an unprotected basis with respect to terrestrial fixed services. The Commission additionally adopts technical requirements to establish safeguards to reduce the likelihood of harmful interference to incumbent operators. The actions taken in the Commission's <E T="03">Report and Order</E> promote spectrum efficiency, foster competition and U.S. leadership, and expand the ability of satellite operators to deploy advanced services, including high-speed internet access to unserved and underserved areas. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective on January 6, 2025. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in this rule was approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of May 31, 2018. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Carolyn Mahoney of the Space Bureau Satellite Programs and Policy Division, Space Bureau, at (202) 418-7168 or <E T="03">carolyn.mahoney@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's <E T="03">Report and Order,</E> in IB Docket No. 22-273, FCC 24-70, adopted on September 26, 2024, and released on September 27, 2024. The full text of this document is available at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-unlocks-spectrum-support-advanced-satellite-services-0.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice and comment rulemakings, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” The Commission has prepared an Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) concerning the potential impact of the rule changes in the <E T="03">Report and Order.</E> The FRFA is set forth in the appendix of the FCC Document <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-changes-certain-space-station-regulatory-fees-fy-2024</E> and a summary is included in the Procedural Matters section below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Paperwork Reduction Act Analysis</HD> The <E T="03">Report and Order</E> does not contain new or modified information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. In addition, the Commission notes that pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, <E T="03">see</E> 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), the Commission previously sought specific comment on how the Commission might further reduce the information collection burdens for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. In the <E T="03">Report and Order,</E> the Commission assessed the effects of its adoption of rules implementing the Part 25 licensing and operating provisions and technical requirements. The Commission finds that such requirements are unlikely to directly impact businesses with fewer than 25 employees. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Congressional Review Act</HD> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs that this rule is non-major under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of the <E T="03">Report and Order</E> to Congress and the Government Accountability Office, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> In the <E T="03">Report and Order,</E> the Commission adopts rule changes to permit use of the 17.3-17.8 GHz band by NGSO operators in the FSS in the downlink direction. This action provides a contiguous 1300 MHz of spectrum for NGSO FSS downlink operations, allowing for technologically innovating and enhanced satellite services to the benefit of American consumers. The allocations in the <E T="03">Report and Order</E> align the U.S. Table with the International Table of Allocations to provide a more cohesive global framework for FSS operators and maximize the efficient use of the 17 GHz band spectrum. The <E T="03">Report and Order</E> specifically permits use of the 17.3-17.7 GHz band for NGSO FSS downlink operations on a co-primary basis with other primary incumbent services operating in the band and on a shared, co-primary basis with GSO space stations. The Commission also permits NGSO FSS downlink use of the 17.7-17.8 GHz band on a co-primary basis with GSO FSS operations and on an unprotected basis with respect to terrestrial fixed services. The Commission accordingly amends the United States Table of Frequency Allocations and 47 CFR part 2 and modifies 47 CFR part 25 to authorize NGSO FSS operations in the 17 GHz band. In permitting use of the 17 GHz band for NGSO FSS operators, the <E T="03">Report and Order</E> adopts technical rules to facilitate operations between NGSO FSS downlink services and incumbent providers operating in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band. The technical measures adopted in the <E T="03">Report and Order</E> also create a more consistent regulatory framework in the 17 GHz band. Specifically, the Commission requires that NGSO FSS operators comply with the power limits established by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) applicable to Region 2. The <E T="03">Report and Order</E> adopts the ITU equivalent power flux density (EPFD) limits applicable in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band and power flux density limits (PFD) limits applicable in the 17.7-17.8 GHz band, and further extends both sets of power limits to the entire 17.3-17.8 GHz band to protect incumbent operators. The <E T="03">Report and Order</E> additionally extends the authorization of individual and blanket-licensed earth stations in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band to include NGSO FSS earth stations. Blanket licenses in the 17.7-17.8 GHz bands will be authorized for operation on an unprotected basis with respect to current and future systems operating in the fixed service. The <E T="03">Report and Order</E> also revises the Commission's rules to include the 17.3-17.7 GHz and 17.7-17.8 GHz bands in list of frequencies available for use by Earth Stations in Motion (ESIMs) communicating with NGSO FSS space stations. The following standards appear in the amendatory text of this document and were previously approved for the locations in which they appear: 2016 ITU Radio Regulations, Article 21, Section V and Article 22, Section II. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> The Table of Frequency Allocations is comprised of the International Table of the ITU Radio Regulations (International Table) and the U.S. Table. In Region 2 of the International Table, the 17.3-17.7 GHz band is allocated to FSS operations (in both uplink (Earth-to-space) and downlink (space-to-Earth) directions and to the broadcasting-satellite service (BSS) on a co-primary basis, as well as to the radiolocation service on a secondary basis. The adjacent 17.7-17.8 GHz band is allocated internationally in ITU Region 2 to the terrestrial fixed service, BSS, and FSS (in both uplink and downlink directions) on a primary basis and to the mobile service on a secondary basis. Prior to the changes adopted in the <E T="03">Report and Order,</E> in the U.S. Table, the 17.3-17.7 GHz band was allocated to the FSS and BSS on a co-primary basis and to the radiolocation services on a secondary basis. Use of the 17.3-17.8 GHz band by BSS and FSS downlink was limited to GSO FSS systems in the U.S. Table. The 17.7-17.8 GHz band was allocated to terrestrial fixed service and FSS (uplink and downlink) on a co-primary basis in the U.S. Table. The 17.3-17.8 GHz band was historically used for FSS feeder uplinks that transmit programming to Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) service GSO space stations, in addition to terrestrial fixed service use of the 17.7-17.8 GHz band. DBS feeder link operations typically involve the use of large, high-gain antennas at a limited number of individually-licensed earth station locations. The DBS service satellites then downlink that video programming directly to consumers in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band. BSS, used as the “17/24 GHz BSS,” provides service downlinks to consumers in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band and is also used for feeder uplinks to DBS space stations, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> reverse band operations. The Commission has previously adopted rules to avoid interference between DBS and 17/24 GHz BSS operations, both in-orbit (“space path” interference) and on the ground (“ground path” interference). On August 3, 2022, the Commission adopted a Report and Order (87 FR 72388, November 25, 2022) ( <E T="03">17 GHz GSO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 86k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━