(Photo Illustration by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
To bolster its cellular Starlink service, SpaceX is reviving a regulatory battle for access to the 2GHz radio spectrum, long held by EchoStar, the parent company of Dish Network and Boost Mobile.
On Wednesday, SpaceX filed a new application with the Federal Communications Commission to use the 2GHz spectrum, a year after the agency denied an earlier request for access.
What’s changed? New FCC Chair Brendan Carr has signaled he wants to free up more radio spectrum for the commercial sector, including satellite services. Carr also sent a letter to EchoStar co-founder Charles Ergen last week, questioning the company’s control over a "large number of FCC spectrum licenses."
On Monday, the FCC asked for public comment about whether EchoStar is effectively using the 2GHz band, which the company has exclusive control over for mobile satellite services. That prompted SpaceX to swoop in and request access to the 2GHz band for its cellular Starlink system, which is launching through T-Mobile in July.
(Credit: T-Mobile)The company's application says the 2GHz spectrum “will provide a significant boost” to how SpaceX’s cellular Starlink system can connect users in cellular dead zones.
"Granting this application will enable SpaceX to augment its MSS [mobile satellite service] capabilities and leverage its next generation satellite constellation to provide increased capacity, reduced latency, and broader service coverage for mobile users across the United States, including those users underserved or unserved by existing networks,” SpaceX wrote.
In the US, the cellular Starlink service currently uses T-Mobile's 1.91 to 1.995GHz bands.
The same application also criticizes EchoStar over its control of the 2GHz spectrum for mobile satellite services. SpaceX even went as far as to use its own Starlink satellites to measure radioactivity in the 2GHz spectrum, finding “EchoStar’s activity level is 1% to 5% in the 2000-2020MHz range and 1% to 3% in the 2180- 2200MHz range.”
(Credit: SpaceX)The application also claims that EchoStar has no intention of using the 2GHz for a mobile satellite service, citing a comment from EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan during an earnings call last week that suggests. "If I had a satellite today, I would not launch it today," he said. "I would not because the satellite has a life of several years in the LEO system. And if the satellite goes up there, but there are no devices to talk to, what is the point?"
As a result, SpaceX tells the FCC: “EchoStar’s inaction is not only a fundamental waste of valuable MSS spectrum, but also an opportunity for other more motivated and capable next-generation satellite system operators to more intensively use the spectrum to provide mobile services to Americans in underserved and unserved areas.”
SpaceX's goal is to share the 2GHz spectrum, saying it can do so without generating radio interference. To gain faster access, the application also asks the FCC to waive its normal rules concerning spectrum approval.
(Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)EchoStar didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But in response to the FCC’s inquiry, the company is pushing back on concerns about its spectrum use, telling investors it’s still developing a “direct-to-device” satellite system for phones.
"We are now testing new S-band (2 to 4GHz) services in both North America and Europe, and this year we launched an LEO satellite with several more planned in the coming months,” the company wrote in an SEC filing.
In the past, EchoStar has also lobbied the FCC to reject SpaceX’s efforts to “pirate” access to the 2GHz band. “SpaceX’s attack is defamatory and anti-competitive. It is a transparently bad faith attempt to usurp the spectrum rights of a competitor, and the Commission should dismiss it as such,” the company wrote in a separate filing last month.