In the Matter of Upper C-band (3.98-4.2 GHz)

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 1, 2, 25, and 27</CFR> <DEPDOC>[GN Docket No. 25-59; FCC 25-78; FR ID 319865]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>In the Matter of Upper C-band (3.98-4.2 GHz)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) seeks comment on proposed rule changes that would expand the ecosystem for next generation wireless services in the 3.7-4.2 GHz band (C-band) by making as much as 180, and at least 100, megahertz of the 3.98-4.2 GHz band (Upper C-band) available for terrestrial wireless flexible use via a system of competitive bidding. This action would be in furtherance of Congress' direction in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB Act) to “complet[e] a system of competitive bidding not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act for not less than 100 megahertz in the band between 3.98 gigahertz and 4.2 gigahertz.” The <E T="03">NPRM</E> seeks comment on options for reconfiguring the Upper C-band in the contiguous United States ranging from 180 megahertz (3.98-4.16 GHz) to the congressionally mandated minimum of 100 megahertz (3.98-4.08 GHz) for terrestrial wireless use. The <E T="03">NPRM</E> seeks comment on how much Upper C-band spectrum—beyond the minimum 100 megahertz required by the OBBB Act—could be repurposed by incumbent fixed satellite service (FSS) space station operators and on how the transition could be effectuated if their existing customers relocate out of the C-band. Under any of the reconfiguration options under consideration, the <E T="03">NPRM</E> 's baseline proposition is to apply the existing 3.7 GHz Service rules (applicable in the Lower C-band from 3.7-3.98 GHz) to any newly authorized terrestrial wireless operations. Any other rules and requirements, including those relating to the transition process, would be modeled to the greatest extent possible on those that applied to the Lower C-band transition. The <E T="03">NPRM</E> also seeks comment on a range of issues associated with repurposing some portion of the Upper C-band, including: reallocation of the 4.0-4.2 GHz band; competitive bidding procedures for an eventual auction; licensing, operating, and technical rules for any new wireless services; (4) transitioning incumbent FSS operations; and promoting co-existence with adjacent band radio altimeters. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before January 5, 2026; reply comments are due on or before February 3, 2026. Written comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) proposed information collection requirements must be submitted by the public, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other interested parties on or before February 3, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). You may submit comments, identified by GN Docket No. 25-59, 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 choose to file by paper must file 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. All filings must be addressed to 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). 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. Send a copy of your comment on any proposed information collection to Cathy Williams, FCC, via email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> and to <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Paul Powell, <E T="03">Paul.Powell@fcc.gov,</E> of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Mobility Division, (202) 418-1613. Direct press inquiries to <E T="03">MediaRelations@fcc.gov.</E> For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, send an email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> or contact Cathy Williams, Office of Managing Director, at (202) 418-2918 or <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@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> ), FCC 25-78, adopted on November 20, 2025 and released on November 21, 2025. The full text of this document is available electronically via the FCC's Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS) website at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/edocs</E> (search using FCC number) or via the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) website at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs</E> (search using docket number). (Documents will be available electronically in ASCII, Microsoft Word, and/or Adobe Acrobat.) <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.</E> 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> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This <E T="03">NPRM</E> may contain proposed new or modified information collections. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on any information collections contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. Public and agency comments are due February 3, 2026. Comments should address: (a) whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Commission, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Commission's burden estimates; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on the respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) way to further reduce the information collection burden on small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), the Commission seeks specific comment on how the Commission might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> 1. In July 2025, Congress adopted, and President Trump signed, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB Act), Public Law 119-21, 40002(b)(2). The OBBB Act re-instituted the Commission's general auction authority and specifically directed the Commission to “grant licenses through systems of competitive bidding, before the expiration of the general auction authority . . . for not less than 300 megahertz, including by completing a system of competitive bidding not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act for not less than 100 megahertz in the band between 3.98 gigahertz and 4.2 gigahertz.” Consistent with this directive, we propose today to further expand the ecosystem for next generation wireless services in the 3.7-4.2 GHz band (C-band) by making as much as 180, and at least 100, megahertz of the 3.98-4.2 GHz band (Upper C-band) available for terrestrial wireless flexible use via a system of competitive bidding. 2. To satisfy our congressional mandate and rapidly make more valuable mid-band spectrum available for terrestrial wireless services, we have identified several key goals for this proceeding. First, we propose to make additional spectrum in the Upper C-band available for new terrestrial wireless operations within the congressionally mandated timeframe. Next, as with the earlier 3.7-3.98 GHz (Lower C-band) transition, we seek to expeditiously transition incumbent operations in the Upper C-band in keeping with our <E T="03">Emerging Technologies</E> precedent. The Commission's <E T="03">Emerging Technologies</E> framework has been relied on since the early 1990s to facilitate the swift transition of spectrum from one use to another. In the Lower C-band, it was used to require new 3.7 GHz Service licensees, as ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 192k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━