Facilitating More Intensive Use of Upper Microwave Spectrum

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[SB Docket No. 25-305; FCC 25-70; FR ID 319485]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Facilitating More Intensive Use of Upper Microwave Spectrum</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 (“FCC” or “Commission”) seeks comment on a variety of measures aimed at facilitating more intensive use of spectrum in the 24 GHz, 28 GHz, upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz, 47 GHz, and 50 GHz bands (together, the UMFUS bands). These bands are shared between the terrestrial Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service (UMFUS) and the Fixed-Satellite Service (FSS) pursuant to the Commission's rules. When the Commission created this framework in 2016, it assumed that UMFUS bands would be used intensively as a part of terrestrial 5G networks, that earth station deployment in the bands would be relatively light, and that the technical rules adopted were necessary to protect terrestrial UMFUS operations but not too onerous to chill FSS earth station siting. Since that time, it has become more clear how the bands are being used for terrestrial service and how growth in the space economy has increased interest in using the UMFUS bands for FSS. Given these shifts, the requirements contained in the Commission's rules have proven to be an impediment to processing earth station applications in the bands. Accordingly, the <E T="03">NPRM</E> would seek input on a variety of mechanisms that might facilitate more intensive use of the UMFUS bands and improve licensing efficiency. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before January 2, 2026; reply comments are due on or before February 2, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by SB Docket No. 25-305, by any of the following methods: • <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 hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. <E T="03">All filings must be addressed to the Commission's Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission.</E> • 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jake Riehm, 202-418-2166, <E T="03">Jake.Riehm@fcc.gov</E> or Kerry Murray, 202-418-0734, <E T="03">Kerry.Murray@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), in SB Docket No. 25-305, FCC 25-70, adopted October 28, 2025, and released October 29, 2025. The full text of this document is available for public inspection online at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-70A1.pdf.</E> The full text of this 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). <E T="03">Ex Parte Presentations.</E> This proceeding shall 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 § 1.1206(b). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> The <E T="03">NPRM</E> does not contain proposed information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, therefore, it does not contain any proposed 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). <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of the <E T="03">NPRM</E> 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. As the space economy has rapidly expanded in recent years, Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) operators' demand for spectrum to deliver broadband to the American people has far exceeded what was expected only a few years ago. And given the finite amount of available spectrum, the Commission must continue to search for ways to make sure bands are intensively used. Therefore, in this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), we begin a review of our rules and policies applicable to upper microwave spectrum bands above 24 GHz that are shared between the terrestrial Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service (UMFUS) and FSS. In light of technological and economic advancements and with the benefit of experience following the Commission's 2016 Spectrum Frontiers Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">Spectrum Frontiers Report and Order</E> ), in which most of the rules governing bands used for UMFUS were adopted, now is an opportune time to consider how we might facilitate more intensive use of these bands. In particular, the <E T="03">NPRM</E> seeks comment on § 25.136 of the Commission's rules, which governs spectrum sharing between UMFUS and FSS operations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> 2. The July 2016 <E T="03">Spectrum Frontiers Report and Order</E> aimed to “take a significant step towards securing the Nation's future in the next generational evolution of wireless technology to so-called 5G.” While these frequencies previously had been thought best suited for satellite and fixed microwave applications, the Commission noted that “recent technological breakthroughs ha[d] newly enabled advanced mobile services in these bands, notably including very high speed and low latency services.” Accordingly, the chief objective of the <E T="03">Spectrum Frontiers Report and Order</E> was to make spectrum available for advanced wireless services using the UMFUS bands. 3. <E T="03">Creation of UMFUS Licensing Framework.</E> The <E T="03">Spectrum Frontiers Report and Order</E> made spectrum available through both licensed and unlicensed mechanisms. The Commission created the UMFUS framework, which permitted authorization of both fixed and mobile operations in the 27.5-28.35 GHz band (28 GHz band), the 37.7-38.6 GHz (upper 37 GHz band), and the 38.6-40 GHz band (39 GHz band) using geographic area licensing. In the 28 GHz band, the Commission permitted authorizations using county-sized geographic area licenses. In the upper 37 and 39 GHz bands, it permitted authorization using Partial Economic Area (PEA) licenses. In the 37-37.6 GHz band, it established coordinated co-primary shared access between Federal and non-Federal users. The Commission also protected a limited number of Federal military sites across the full 37 GHz band and maintained the existing Federal fixed and mobile allocations throughout the band. 4. The <E T="03">Spectrum Frontiers Report and Order</E> also established licensing and operating rules for UMFUS. It granted mobile operating rights in the 28 GHz band to existing Local Multipoint Distr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 83k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━