Satellite Operators Expected to Compete With Carriers for Upper C Band
Satellite interests, led by SpaceX, are hungry for more spectrum for direct-to-device (D2D) service and are expected to seek access to the upper C band, which the FCC will examine in a notice of inquiry set for a vote at Thursday's open meeting (see 2502060062). Elon Musk, who is playing a huge role in the new Donald Trump administration and heads SpaceX, could influence what the FCC does, industry experts note.
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The potential fight over the band comes after Trump ordered independent agencies, including the FCC, to coordinate all significant moves with the White House (see 2502190073). Industry experts said that could mean White House staff will need to develop expertise on intricate spectrum issues that the FCC addresses.
In a Jan. 30 letter to the FCC, SpaceX called for “a modernized sharing framework for the upper C-band that welcomes multiple new entrants.”
The 3.98-4.2 GHz band, “or a portion of it, may help meet the need for D2D spectrum, and could potentially be globally coordinated over time,” Summit Ridge President Armand Musey told us. Musey co-authored a recent paper that said “identifying appropriate spectrum is a significant challenge” for the new D2D services (see 2501270054).
The upper C-band frequencies are “a bit high for D2D, especially if the goal is to have any meaningful ability to penetrate foliage and other obstructions,” Musey added. The amount that could be raised from auctioning terrestrial wireless licenses “would likely be much higher, and may be too difficult for politicians and regulators to turn down.”
The upper C band “is an enormous opportunity to unleash additional spectrum for mobile 5G, for … satellite direct to device connectivity, or for a combination of both,” emailed Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is “wise” to open an NOI “to explore what form of repurposing or sharing will best promote innovation and the connectivity needs of the future.”
Wireless carriers are clearly interested in the C band, New Street’s Blair Levin told investors in a research note. “But we don’t think the wireless industry should be popping champagne yet,” he said. “For one thing, Carr did not say he was opening up the spectrum for 5G wireless commercial use.” Levin also noted the interest of satellite operators.
Levin said Carr has been “very sympathetic to the desires of the wireless industry to obtain more spectrum,” but over the last year, he has also advocated positions that Musk and the satellite industry favor: “To paraphrase an old Broadway song, in this Administration it appears that ‘Whatever Elon wants, Elon gets.’ So, it is difficult to have conviction on the outcome.”
CTIA and the carriers are making the rounds at the FCC, stressing the importance of the upper C band to their networks. Representatives of CTIA, T-Mobile, UScellular and Verizon met with Carr aides Wednesday, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 25-59: “CTIA highlighted the urgent need for the Commission to open additional mid-band spectrum for licensed 5G use.”
During an RCR Wireless webinar Thursday, speakers said that in an increasingly interconnected world, satellite has a big role to play in supplementing terrestrial coverage.
The cellular network reaches less than 20% of the world, and coverage is “extremely fragmented,” said Karim Baccar, core network engineer at OQ Technology, which offers satellite and terrestrial service for the IoT. There is no coverage in many rural areas with no roaming or mobility support, he added.
Suman Sharma, Mavenir senior director-product management, said satellite connections have been available for decades, but interest is growing because of coverage gaps that leave about 500 million people worldwide without internet access. Another driver is the focus of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project on non-terrestrial networks (NTN) and incorporating satellite coverage into 5G standards, he said. 3GPP Release 17, completed in 2022, was the first to incorporate NTN into the standards.
Questions remain about how much customers are willing to pay for NTN to get service in areas where they can’t connect today, Sharma said. “Right now, there’s a lot of anticipation.” Another question is whether it makes financial sense to move IoT devices from terrestrial to satellite networks, he added.
Making satellite and terrestrial networks work together remains a challenge, said Uday Parida, CTO of Simnovus, a 5G software company. “I’ve seen teams often struggle in pinpointing the root cause of why things are not working.”
NTN is based on devices, carrier infrastructure and satellite infrastructure, Parida said. Satellite infrastructure is the newest “piece” and the part that's "kind of scary sometimes.” Not all satellites are the same, “and that adds to the complexity of the overall network,” he continued. “Different types of satellites, different devices, must seamlessly work together.”