Wireless Groups Demand More Information on AST SpaceMobile's SCS Requests
AT&T, Verizon and AST SpaceMobile haven’t provided enough information on their supplemental coverage from space (SCS) partnership to be granted waivers, and the proposed arrangement could lead to interference for other carriers, said T-Mobile, wireless groups and the Competitive Carriers Association in reply filings posted Monday in docket 25-201. “Commenters in this proceeding have expressed grave concerns about the missing information and significant flaws in AST’s application to provide SCS,” said T-Mobile. “Yet AST has either ignored those concerns or made merely performative attempts to convince the Bureaus to dismiss them.”
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AST “has not met its burden of demonstrating that its proposed operations will not cause harmful interference,” said a joint filing from several smaller wireless carriers. Granting the requested waivers without more information “will shift an overwhelming burden onto Carriers to identify and test for interference, attempt to resolve it with AST, and if necessary, file complaints to the FCC.”
The Rural Wireless Association argued that if the waiver requests are granted, nationwide wireless carriers could opt not to permit their customers to roam on rural wireless carrier networks and instead bypass that service using the SCS. That would “cause significant economic harm and result in rural wireless carriers losing a significant amount of the roaming revenues that they rely on to support their vital networks.”
AT&T, Verizon, and AST SpaceMobile “are asking the FCC to take unreasonable risks in granting the applications as is: doing so will cause harmful interference, undermine primary terrestrial service in rural areas and undercut roaming,” said the Competitive Carriers Association. “The FCC should help guide SCS in the United States in a way that avoids these risks.”