Modernizing Spectrum Sharing for Satellite Broadband

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[SB Docket No. 25-157; FCC 25-23; FR ID 294294]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Modernizing Spectrum Sharing for Satellite Broadband</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or we) seeks comment on modernizing spectrum sharing between geostationary (GSO) and non-geostationary (NGSO) satellite systems operating in the 10.7-12.7, 17.3-18.6, and 19.7-20.2 GHz frequency bands in which equivalent power-flux density (EPFD) limits apply. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due July 28, 2025. Reply comments are due August 27, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by SB Docket No. 25-157, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">FCC website: https://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> Contact the FCC to request reasonable accommodations (accessible format documents, sign language interpreters, CART, etc.) by email: <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or phone: 202-418-0530 or TTY: 202-418-0432. For detailed instructions for submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Clay DeCell, 202-418-0803, <E T="03">Clay.DeCell@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), FCC 25-23, adopted April 28, 2025, and released April 29, 2025. The full text is available online at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-23A1.pdf.</E> The document is also available for inspection and copying during business hours in the FCC Reference Center, 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities, send an email to <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Procedural Matters</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comment Filing Requirements</HD> Interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section above. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). • <E T="03">Electronic Filers.</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers.</E> Parties who file by paper must include an original and one copy of each filing. ○ Filings can be sent by commercial overnight courier, or by first-class or overnight U.S. Postal Service mail. All filings must be addressed to the Commission's Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. ○ Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. ○ Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. ○ Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express, must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Ex Parte Presentations</HD> Pursuant to 47 CFR 1.1200(a), this proceeding will be treated as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and must be filed consistent with 47 CFR 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by 47 CFR 1.49(f) or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <HD SOURCE="HD2">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 rulemaking proceedings, 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 an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) concerning the possible impact of potential rule and policy changes contained in the NPRM on small entities. The IRFA is set forth in Appendix A of the Commission document, <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-23A1.pdf.</E> The Commission invites the general public, in particular small businesses, to comment on the IRFA. Comments must be filed by the deadlines for comments indicated on the first page of this document and must have a separate and distinct heading designating them as responses to the IRFA. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This document does not contain proposed information collections subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. In addition, therefore, it does not contain any new or modified information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act</HD> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this document will be available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> 1. The United States' pursuit of space leadership demands that the Commission's rules stay ahead of the rapidly unfolding space innovations that are providing massive consumer benefit to Americans. Our nation's commercial space industry is already delivering services that are changing lives, from connecting rural families with high-speed, low latency broadband to enabling life-saving communications in rural places as well as forests, mountains, and wilderness areas. And every indication is that this is only at the beginning. In a matter of years—with the right framework in place—the U.S. space industry will be delivering even faster high-speed services, will bring more competition and choice for consumers, and will support entirely new categories of innovation to keep America the strongest and safest nation on Earth. It is imperative the Commission does everything possible to clear the way for American innovation and investment in space excellence. 2. With this goal at the forefront, in the NPRM, we initiate a review of the decades-old spectrum sharing regime between geostationary (GSO) and non-geostationary (NGSO) satellite systems operating in the 10.7-12.7, 17.3-18.6, and 19.7-20.2 GHz bands that represents the single most constraining regulatory requirement on NGSO satellite systems currently deploying at breakneck speed. By taking a fresh look at today's satellite technology and operations, this proceeding will ensure highly efficient and effective use of the shared spectrum, and support a more efficient and competitive market for satellite broadband and other in-demand services while uncapping the potential of satellite constellations that were unthinkable when the current regime was developed, to the ultimate benefit of American consumers. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> 3. <E T="03">Overview.</E> Recent years have witnessed unprecedented growth and innovation in the satellite marketplace. New NGSO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 64k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━