Spectrum Sharing Rules for NGSO Fixed-Satellite Service Systems

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[IB Docket No. 21-456; FCC 24-117; FR ID 265639]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Spectrum Sharing Rules for NGSO Fixed-Satellite Service Systems</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; denial of reconsideration. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) clarifies the methodology to be used in compatibility analyses by non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) fixed-satellite service (FSS) system licensees. The <E T="03">Second Report and Order</E> adopts specific degraded throughput methodology criteria that NGSO FSS systems licensed in a later processing round must include in compatibility analyses, in absence of a coordination agreement, to demonstrate that they can operate compatibly with and protect NGSO FSS systems authorized in earlier processing rounds. The <E T="03">Second Report and Order</E> clarifies these methodologies to promote market entry, regulatory certainty, and spectrum efficiency through good-faith coordination. The Commission also adopts an <E T="03">Order on Reconsideration</E> dismissing in part and, on alternative and independent grounds, denying a petition for reconsideration. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective on January 13, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Carolyn Mahoney, 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">Second Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration,</E> in IB Docket No. 21-456, FCC 24-117, adopted on November 5, 2024 and released on November 15, 2024. The full text of this document is available at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-117A1.pdf.</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.” Accordingly, the Commission has prepared a Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) concerning the potential impact of the rule changes contained in the <E T="03">Second Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration.</E> The FRFA is set forth in the appendix of the document available at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-117A1.pdf</E> and a summary is included in the Procedural Matters section below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Paperwork Reduction Act Analysis</HD> The <E T="03">Second Report and Order</E> contains modified information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. It will be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review under Section 3507(d) of the PRA. OMB, other Federal agencies, and the general public will be invited to comment on the modified information collection requirements contained in this document. The Commission assessed the effects of requiring later-round NGSO FSS grantees to submit compatibility showings with respect to earlier-round grantees with whom coordination has not yet been reached. The Commission finds that doing so will serve the public interest and is unlikely to directly affect 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">Second Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration</E> to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, <E T="03">see</E> 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synposis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> In the <E T="03">Second Report and Order,</E> the Commission continues to refine the Commission's rules governing spectrum sharing among a new generation of broadband satellite constellations to promote market entry, regulatory certainty, and spectrum efficiency through good-faith coordination. Specifically, the Commission clarifies certain details of the degraded throughput methodology that, in the absence of a coordination agreement, must be used in compatibility analyses by non-geostationary satellite orbit, fixed-satellite service (NGSO FSS) system licensees authorized through later processing rounds to show they can operate compatibly with, and protect, NGSO FSS systems authorized through earlier processing rounds. The Commission adopts a 3 percent time-weighted average throughput degradation as a long-term interference protection criterion, a 0.4 percent absolute increase in link unavailability as a short-term interference protection criterion, and declines to adopt additional protection metrics or to adopt an aggregate limit on interference from later-round NGSO FSS systems into earlier-round NGSO FSS systems. In an accompanying <E T="03">Order on Reconsideration,</E> the Commission denies a Petition for Reconsideration (88 FR 58540, August 28, 2023) of the <E T="03">Report and Order</E> (88 FR 39783, June 30, 2023). These actions continue the Commission's efforts to promote development and competition in broadband NGSO satellite services. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> The Commission is committed to updating and refining its rules governing NGSO FSS systems, at a time when these systems are being deployed at unprecedented scale. NGSO FSS satellites traveling in low- and medium-Earth orbit provide broadband services to industry, enterprise, and residential customers with lower latency and wider coverage than previously available by satellite. <E T="03">Processing Round Procedure Overview.</E> Applications for NGSO FSS system licenses and petitions for declaratory ruling seeking U.S. market access for non-U.S.-licensed NGSO FSS systems are considered in groups based on filing date, under a processing round procedure. Pursuant to the Commission's rules, a license application for “NGSO-like” satellite operation, including operation of an NGSO FSS system, that satisfies the acceptability for filing requirements is reviewed to determine whether it is a “competing application” or a “lead application.” A competing application is one filed in response to a public notice initiating a processing round. Any other application is a lead application. The public notice for a lead application initiates a processing round and establishes a cut-off date for competing NGSO-like satellite system applications. After the close of the processing round, the Commission grants all the applications for which the Commission finds that the applicant is legally, technically, and otherwise qualified, that the proposed facilities and operations comply with all applicable rules, regulations, and policies, and that grant of the application will serve the public interest, convenience and necessity. <E T="03">NGSO FSS System Spectrum Sharing Overview.</E> The Commission has adopted rules for spectrum sharing among NGSO FSS systems. NGSO FSS space station license applications granted with a condition to abide by these sharing rules are exempt from frequency band segmentation procedures that otherwise apply to applications for NGSO-like satellite operation. Instead, NGSO FSS operators must coordinate with one another in good faith the use of commonly authorized frequencies. If two or more NGSO FSS satellite systems fail to complete coordination, a default spectrum-splitting procedure using a ΔT/T of 6 percent threshold applies, pursuant to § 25.261(c) of the Commission's rules. In the <E T="03">NGSO FSS Report and Order</E> (82 FR 59972, December 18, 2017), the Commission stated that it would “initially limit” sharing under the ΔT/T of 6 percent threshold to qualified applicants in a processing round. The Commission explained that treatment of applicants after a processing round would be on a case-by-case basis and would consider both the need to protect existing expectations and investments and the benefits of additional entry, as well as any comments filed by incumbent operators and reasoning presented by the new applicant. <E T="03">Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.</E> The <E T="03">NPRM</E> (88 FR 39783, June 30, 2023) in this proceeding sought comment on potential rule changes to clarify the relative obligations between NGSO FSS systems approved in different processing rounds. Specifically, the Commission proposed to limit the existing NGSO FSS spectrum-splitting procedure in § 25.261(c) to those systems approved in the same processing round, and to require systems approved in a later processing round to coordinate with, or demonstrate they will protect, earlier-round systems. The Commission invited comment on how to quantify inter-round protection and whether it should sunset after a period of time. The Commission also proposed to require all NGSO FSS grantees, regardless of their processing round status, to coordinate with each other in good faith, and sought comment on specific information sharing obligations that could facilitate operator-to-operator coordination. <E T="03">Report and Order.</E> In response to the record developed through the NPRM, the <E T="03">Report and Order</E> adopted rule changes designed to promote market entry, regulatory certainty, and spectrum effici ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 148k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━