Big Tech-backed Group Supports Musk at FCC
Group’s support comes as Project Kuiper sets to begin service in 2025.
WASHINGTON, July 29, 2025 – The Big Tech-backed Chamber of Progress has thrown its support behind low-Earth-orbit satellite providers.
In a Monday filing with the Federal Communications Commission, the group argued that Equivalent Power Flux-Density regulations governing LEOs should be updated to reflect the current technological landscape.
“We support the SpaceX petition for rulemaking on updating [EPFD] rules to accelerate the deployment of competitive LEO choices,” the group, led by founder and CEO Adam Kovacevich, wrote. “Past EPFD limits reflected a previous generation of technology…EPFD limits should reflect contemporary technological realities.”
EPFD restrictions were developed in the 1990s to shield geostationary satellites from interference from non-geostationary satellites, including LEOs, by limiting signal power density from NGSO systems.
Several industry groups and participants have argued that the restrictions are outdated and unnecessary in light of technological advances, prompting both the FCC and the International Telecommunication Union to study the issue.
To support its claims, COP cited an August 2023 study by Harold Furchtgott-Roth, an economist and former Commissioner for the FCC, that showed that updating EPFD limits could increase broadband capacity by up to 180 percent, while generating consumer welfare gains ranging from $10 billion to $100 billion globally.
Though LEO operators have generally supported revising EPFD rules, several GEO providers have spoken out against the proposed revisions. They have argued that revising the EPFD limits could lead to interference between satellite systems.
“While cloaked in the rhetoric of innovation and consumer benefit, the petition’s core proposal…would in fact unleash a cascade of harmful consequences,” EchoStar, a GEO operator, wrote in a November filing to the FCC. “It would not only generate an imminent risk of harmful interference and disruption to the services, both television and broadband, provided by incumbent GSO operators to millions of Americans; it would also undermine the very international cooperation that underpins the successful functioning of the global satellite ecosystem.”
The discussion over changing EPFD regulations comes in the midst of surging demand for broadband service from LEO providers. Elon Musk’s Starlink provides service to more than 6 million subscribers, while Amazon’s Project Kuiper is set to initiate internet service by the end of 2025.
Musk’s Starlink has deployed about 8,000 satellites that provide internet in 140 countries. Kuiper, after three deployments in 2025, has 78 LEOs above Earth.
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