The FCC's decision to allow SpaceX to conduct supplemental coverage space testing (see 2312050029) goes "beyond the scope of reasonable, limited, and transparent" testing requirements applied to SCS operators Lynk and AST SpaceMobile, Lynk representatives told members of the offices of Commissioners Anna Gomez, Nathan Simington and Brendan Carr, said a filing Friday in docket 23-65. Lynk said numerous international regulators are changing and implementing applicable rules so jurisdictions can accommodate SCS services, and that international regulators "are looking to the FCC for global leadership on how to address novel SCS services." It said in many cases they are likely to replicate FCC policy. It said SCS applications proposing to use terrestrial bands shouldn't be added as a primary use to the Table of Frequencies and that processing rounds for such terrestrial spectrum wouldn't be necessary since the SCS service would be authorized on a non-protected, noninterference basis.

SpaceX is "pretty happy" with the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference action on higher power levels for non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) satellites, David Goldman, vice president-space policy, said Wednesday at a Broadband Breakfast event. WRC-23 wrapped up last week in Dubai (see 2312150012). Current ITU equivalent power flux density restraints are "very, very constraining for next-generation systems," he said. Higher power levels for NGSOs would be "a force multiplier," allowing them to serve more customers while remaining below the noise floor for geostationary orbit satellite systems, he said. While there was "lively debate" about higher power levels, including concerns from some nations that rely on GSOs, the outcome -- ITU asking for studies ahead of WRC-27, leaving the door open to updating rules then -- is a big positive, he said. Asked about the FCC's net neutrality proceeding, Kalpak Gude, domestic regulatory affairs head for Amazon's Kuiper, said the company is a net neutrality supporter and operating within the agency's proposed rules should not pose a problem. Gude and SpaceX's Goldman expressed concerns that FCC rules must recognize legitimate network management capabilities for NGSOs. While NTIA's broadband equity, access and deployment program is not technology neutral, with its thumb on the scale in favor of fiber, the agency has indicated NGSO systems can participate and some states are taking a close look at that, Goldman said. He said BEAD cannot reach 100% coverage without a satellite component. He said Starlink qualifies for and will participate in the affordable connectivity program. SpaceX's Starlink has more than 2 million subscribers globally and is operating in more than 80 nations, with Africa its fastest-growing region, he said. Goldman said Starlink has worked through its U.S. backlog and service kits including the antenna are sent within a couple of days of someone signing up online. He said SpaceX will "come close" to hitting its goal of 100 launches this year. Gude said Amazon is "incredibly thrilled" with test results of its two experimental Kuipers in orbit. He said launch of the constellation should start "around the second quarter [of 2024] or so," adding commercial Kuiper service will start in late 2024, but more broad delivery will ramp up in the subsequent couple of years.

Amazon and SpaceX are raising red flags over Telesat's request for more time to meet milestone deadlines for its Lightspeed low earth orbit constellation (see 2310270002). An extended or waived milestone deadline would undermine the FCC's processing round framework "and frustrate the purpose of its buildout milestones," Amazon said Monday. It said the alternative of moving Telesat's first-round surety bond to its second-round system would help promote competition and innovation from a new non-geostationary orbit operator and further the purpose of the commission's surety bond requirements. The FCC "must guard against COVID-related arguments becoming a get-out-of-jail-free card for any operator that fails to make the required level of progress on deploying and operating its authorized system," SpaceX said. It said the agency should "scrutinize very carefully, and bring a healthy skepticism to, an operator’s milestone extension requests where they are not supported by contemporaneous public statements warning of a COVID-related delay," especially when other operators met their deployment obligations at the same time.

Satellite operator Lynk Global will combine with Slam Corp., a special purpose acquisition company established by former MLB star Alex Rodriguez and Antara Capital founder Himanshu Gulati, Slam told the SEC Monday. The combined company's stock would be listed on NASDAQ, it said. Slam said its shareholders will vote Friday on setting a Dec. 25, 2024, deadline for closing the transaction.

EchoStar's Hughes is launching Hughesnet home residential broadband offerings that use capacity from the company's high-throughput Juipter 3 satellite, it said Tuesday.

Amazon and Viasat are at odds over conditions on Viasat's pending satellite applications. Viasat last month told the FCC its earth stations' use of the 18.8-19.3 GHz and 28.6-29.1 GHz band segments pose no interference threat to non-geostationary orbit operations there. It added there's no need for conditions requiring coordination or technical demonstrations. Amazon told the FCC Space Bureau Tuesday the examples Viasat lists to bolster that argument involved relatively minor modifications of existing authorizations. It urged agency approval of Viasat's pending applications be conditioned on Viasat entering into a coordination agreement with relevant NGSO fixed satellite service operators and showing how it will protect relevant NGSO FSS systems.

During oral argument Monday on Dish Network’s challenge to the FCC’s approval of SpaceX's second-generation satellite constellation (see 2312110031), Judge Neomi Rao asked whether a treaty governs the relationship between the U.S. and the ITU. “The answer is yes,” FCC attorney James Carr wrote to the clerk of the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit Wednesday (docket 23-1001). Adopted in 1992, the ITU’s Constitution and Convention “is a treaty establishing the legal basis for the ITU and defining its purpose and structure,” Carr said. Earlier, Rao questioned whether an argument that the FCC impermissibly subdelegated authority to the ITU was inherently a challenge of FCC rules. Dish's counsel, Steptoe’s Pantelis Michalopoulos, immediately responded to Carr’s missive with his own letter to the D.C. Circuit clerk, "correct[ing] a possible misunderstanding” that Carr's missive raised, he wrote. “While the ITU has been created by treaty, the ITU’s findings do not have the force of a treaty, and the FCC has correctly not argued in its brief that they have such force,” Michalopoulos wrote. The ITU treaty’s preamble “makes clear” that it’s the sovereign right of each country to regulate its telecommunications, he said.

Amazon's two prototype Kuiper satellites have optical communications payloads, and the company has conducted multiple demonstrations of the technology involving 100 Gbps links over 1,000 km distances, Amazon said Thursday. It said the tests ensure Kuiper will use optical inter-satellite links for its production satellites, set to launch in the first half of 2024. All Kuipers will include multiple optical terminals connecting multiple satellites at a time, establishing infrared laser cross-links that form a mesh network in space. Amazon said mesh networks will increase throughput and reduce latency across the constellation.

Satellite interests successfully headed off terrestrial mobile encroachment into the 10-15 GHz span at the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference, said Isabelle Mauro, Global Satellite Operators Association executive director, Thursday during a GSOA webinar. She said the industry pushed back hard at WRC-23 against identification of spectrum in that span for terrestrial mobile use, and the net result is it won't be studied for future identification for international mobile telecommunications (IMT). Mauro said there will be significant WRC-27 agenda items around satellite, including proposed aggregate interference limits. She said WRC is typically split between IMT and satellite items, but WRC-23 discussions and agenda items skewed toward satellite. Tony Robinson, Avanti Communications chief-strategy and business development, said satellite over the past 10 years has transitioned from an expensive niche technology, "the connectivity of last resort," to being more mainstream. Yet regulators in some countries "still see it as an expensive thing that can be taxed" rather than a viable connectivity solution, he said. Using satellite to help close the digital divide will require more collaboration between private and public sectors, said Jorge Rodriguez Lopez, Hispasat head-presales and product management, pointing to Spain's subsidization of satellite connectivity and terminals to provide 100 Mbps service to the public at a cost of 35 euros ($38.47) per month. Such initiatives, however, might not work in more rural developing nations, he said. In those cases, instead of basic services such as connecting individual homes, the focus might need to be more on connectivity for select use cases like education and agriculture, he said. Mauro said that given different connectivity needs and different markets of different regions, there isn't going to be a single solution. She said governments must understand satellite operators “aren’t philanthrop[ists]” and are not going to operate when there’s not a viable business case. Discussing how satellite can compete when government policies favor fiber or mobile, Mauro said the revenues that licenses and spectrum access can bring to government coffers often end up influencing how movements think. Lopez said the proliferation of mega constellations is also giving different countries a perspective that satellite is a viable route to connectivity. Supplemental coverage from space for now is more of an additive service in developed markets than a viable communications service in developing nations lacking good terrestrial coverage, Robinson said.

Early supplemental coverage from space applicants should receive "careful consideration" by the FCC, as SCS is nascent technology with unknown and potentially unintended consequences, Lynk representatives told Commissioner Geoffrey Starks' office, according to a docket 23-65 filing Tuesday. With various entrants potentially using different spectrum and technology, it's critical to understand the impact of these entrants on existing license holders and the SCS ecosystem, it said. The company said it has concerns about grants of authority that go beyond the scope of the limited testing that was applied to it and AST SpaceMobile.