FCC to Vote on Revamping Satellite Rules, 37 GHz Framework

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote later this month on reviewing satellite spectrum sharing rules and instituting a licensing regime for nonfederal users in the 37 GigaHertz (GHz) band. The agency released drafts of the items Monday.

The public draft of the satellite item would seek input on current spectrum sharing rules between geostationary satellites, which stay above a single point on the equator, and low or medium-earth orbit satellites, which fly lower and are more mobile.

SpaceX, the market-dominating LEO operator, had asked the FCC to revisit limits on power levels in August 2024, a request the agency said it would be granting by moving ahead with the proceeding. 

“Power limits developed in the 1990s to protect geostationary satellite systems from interference continue to restrict the performance of non-geostationary satellite systems, even though advancements in sharing technology arguably make the rules of the past no longer necessary,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote in a blog post last week.

The agency wouldn’t be proposing specific rules, but taking input on how power limits on non-geostationary satellites could be loosened. The rules were instituted to protect the location-locked systems from interference.

The International Telecommunications Union, the international body that works to coordinate global spectrum policy, is currently studying the issue, as both the FCC and satellite companies opposed to the SpaceX petition noted. The results are set to be presented at the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference.

“The complex technical and policy issues surrounding” power limits, EchoStar wrote, “demand careful study and international collaboration, not unilateral action driven by the self-serving interests of a single company.” EchoStar uses one of the bands at issue for its broadcast TV service.

In a public draft of the item, the agency said it would merely be developing a record to make more informed changes in the future, but in any event had the right to set limits in excess of the international rules within its borders.

New America’s Open Technology Institute supported the move, with its director Michael Calabrese meeting April 1 with Carr’s wireless advisor and urging the agency to “move ahead and update the rules to exceed the ITU’s outdated EPFD limits while still protecting GSO and terrestrial wireless operations.”

Elon Musk, the billionaire Republican donor and close adviser to President Donald Trump, owns SpaceX. The FCC is currently evenly split with two Republican and Democratic commissioners, meaning the item had enough bipartisan support to land on the agenda.

37 GHz licensing

The FCC will also vote on a new licensing framework for the 37 GHz band. Taking cues from a previous FCC plan and a report produced by the Defense Department and National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the draft order would institute a licensing system with two phases.

First, licensees would check whether a proposed site might interfere with existing users. If the answer is yes, the applicant would have to coordinate with those incumbents, a process that would be overseen by the FCC and NTIA. 

“This spectrum is currently shared by the government and commercial entities, but there are no clear sharing rules for this spectrum, which is keeping companies from moving forward with deployments,” Carr wrote in the blog post. “So this month, the Commission will vote to establish a new licensing framework for this band, effectively opening up 600 megahertz of spectrum for new commercial services.”

The military would have priority in the bottom 200 megahertz of the band. The NTIA/DoD report was produced under the Biden administration’s national spectrum strategy, an effort to study government airwaves for potential repurposing with the private sector.

The FCC’s draft order would also seek input on a more stringent limit on interference with adjacent bands to protect weather forecasting and other meteorological research, something requested by multiple research groups. Some equipment vendors had opposed the idea.

The agency is also set to vote on expanding robocall prevention requirements.