The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made a long-awaited revision to its rules for spectrum sharing among non-geostationary (NGSO) fixed-satellite service (FSS) satellite constellations. A Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, adopted at an Open Commission Meeting on April 20, 2023, clarifies protection obligations of NGSO FSS systems. In so doing, the FCC seeks to encourage the deployment of the next generation of satellites—many of which will be used to provide broadband services—with updated guidance to industry that will allow for better regulatory certainty, for both incumbent NGSO FSS systems and new entrants.

The Order makes several key changes to existing rules:

• It requires NGSO FSS systems approved in later processing rounds to either coordinate with, or demonstrate that they will protect, earlier-round systems. This includes a requirement that all NGSO FSS grantees coordinate in good faith. It also includes a requirement that, in the event that earlier- and later-round systems do not reach a coordination agreement for inter-round sharing, later-round systems must submit an interference analysis based on a degraded throughput methodology to demonstrate that they will protect earlier-round systems from interference
• It subjects the protections for earlier-round NGSO FSS systems to a ten-year sunset period, following which new entrants authorized in later processing rounds will be permitted to share spectrum on an equal basis with earlier-round incumbents
• Finally, before sunset occurs, it limits the use of the default spectrum-splitting procedure for resolving conflicts between NGSO FSS systems to NGSO FSS systems approved in the same processing round

These changes will apply to all current NGSO FSS licensees and market access grantees, as well as all pending and future applicants and petitioners. The decision’s broad scope covers any operator that has a pending application and any licensed operator that has not yet obtained a coordination agreement with other operators.

The new policy offers benefits to both incumbent and new NGSO FSS systems. While the ten-year sunset period could provide a long period of primary spectrum access to those operators able to launch complete systems quickly, it also ensures that new technologies need not operate on secondary status for a long period of time. Sunsetting of the protections of the early-round operations can technically occur before these systems are even fully deployed. But ten years is a generous window, and later-round operators must still certify their interference showing to earlier-round operators, even when the later-round operators go into service first.

While the FCC indicated that the requirement for good faith coordination will involve information sharing, the agency did not outline in detail what information must be shared, if any. The FCC’s order mentions certain information that it assumes will be shared, including the maximum number of satellites that can provide service simultaneously at the same location, the exclusion angle to the GSO arc, minimum earth station elevation angles, the location of gateway earth stations, and, potentially, which satellites will be transmitting in a given situation. None of that information is specifically required by the rule. The FCC explained that the “prospect of a later-round system operating on a non-interference basis after submitting a compatibility showing . . . may provide an incentive to the earlier-round operator to share additional technical information to ensure its ongoing operations are in fact protected.”

The FCC deferred a decision on what values and assumptions should be used for the degraded throughput methodology, seeking additional comment on this question in a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM). The FCC also put off to the FNPRM the question of whether it should adopt a rule limiting aggregate interference from later-round NGSO FSS systems into earlier-round systems.

While this is an important decision, the FCC’s Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is just the next step in incentivizing the development of new satellite technology. That said, the new rule is welcome, and it is a sign that the agency continues to lead the way in developing an effective regulatory scheme for space technology.

Comments on the FNPRM will be due 45 days after its publication in the Federal Register, likely in June. Reply comments will be due 75 days after publication in the Federal Register, likely in July.