WRC-27 Seen as One of WRC-23's Biggest Focuses

The U.S. was premature in creating a supplemental coverage from space (SCS) rules framework, and other nations ought to wait until after the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference, when there's a more globalized framework to follow, said Mindel de la Torre, Omnispace chief regulatory and international strategy officer, Thursday at Access Intelligence’s Satellite 2024 conference in Washington. Multiple 2023 WRC attendees said there was far greater focus on future agenda items than at past WRCs.

SCS studies in preparation for WRC-27 will be challenging because band plans can differ notably from country to country, de la Torre said. Even within a region, neighboring countries can differ in how allocations are assigned to operators, she said. The FCC adopted an SCS framework at its March open meeting (see 2403140050).

Audrey Allison, senior project leader-Center for Space Policy and Strategy, Aerospace Corp., said the multiple mobile satellite service agenda items on the WRC-27 agenda represent "a huge pivot" for WRCs, which hadn't much prioritized MSS previously.

Getting a study item for WRC-27 that looks at frequency bands for 6G was difficult, said Aspasia Paroutsas, Qualcomm vice president-federal regulatory affairs. While WRC-27 will have numerous satellite agenda items, "for terrestrial spectrum, we only had this one," she said. "Everything is riding on it."

Alex Epshteyn, manager-international regulatory affairs and spectrum for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, said the ITU's non-geostationary orbit rules were largely set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, reflecting the first wave of NGSO interest, and they haven't been updated. WRC-23 saw a number of successes in NGSO rules updates, he said, pointing to rules governing earth stations in motion operation and an additional allocation for NGSOs in 17.3-17.7 GHz in Region 2. He joked that NGSO interests might have had more success seeking yet more spectrum than in attempting to change the equivalent power flux density limits protecting geostationary orbit satellites from NGSOs. The EPFD issue saw big disagreements between NGSO and GSO operators (see 2402060048). Epshteyn said that once EPFD studies are presented at WRC-27, "I think we will have another spectrum war about what exactly to do" next. He said Amazon has numerous technical studies it will need to produce in preparation for WRC-27, as well as be active in working party groups -- sometimes in areas with which it has scant familiarity, like radio astronomy.

The idea of a one-stop regulatory shop for space activities is “a distractor,” said Diane Howard, National Space Council commercial space policy director. “We don't live in a world of one-stop shops,” she said, pointing to agencies such as the FCC and FAA having different regulatory domains. She said NSC goals include working on implementation of the White House's novel space activities framework issued in December and on export control reforms.