Satellite Spectrum Abundance: The FCC Opens 12.7 and 42 GHz to Satellites and Breaks From the ITU Table

Most spectrum fights in Washington end with satellites losing ground to mobile networks. This one went the other way. At its open meeting on 30 September, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a single omnibus item that takes two bands once earmarked for terrestrial wireless and hands them to satellite operators, while opening two new rulemakings that could move several thousand more megahertz in the same direction.

The Report and Order and Further Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC 26-65) was released on 1 October. It is long, technical and easy to file under “telecoms”, but it matters to space lawyers for three reasons. It changes who can transmit what, and in which direction, in bands that large constellations want now. It departs knowingly from the international allocation table. And it gives the first real sign of how the FCC intends to license the in-orbit servicing and lunar missions that do not fit its existing categories.

What the FCC decided

The order covers two bands: 12.7 to 13.25 GHz (the “12.7 GHz band”) and 42 to 42.5 GHz (the “42 GHz band”). Both had been the subject of 2023 proposals to expand terrestrial mobile use. In May 2025 the Commission asked instead whether satellites might use them more quickly and intensively, in a notice published at 90 FR 27499. The answer in the record was clear. The order notes that no commenter opposed adding satellite allocations in either band. It also says the Commission has since made spectrum more suited to mobile networks available elsewhere, including the Upper C-band, and that the current record shows little interest in more intensive terrestrial use of these two bands.

So the Commission terminated the separate terrestrial proceedings for both bands and opened them to satellites. It estimates that the change will increase high throughput satellite capacity by about 25 per cent in the 12.7 GHz band and 7.2 per cent in the 42 GHz band, and puts quantifiable net benefits over five years at between $151 million and $1.2 billion using a 3 per cent discount rate.

Chairman Brendan Carr’s statement frames the item as part of a wider “spectrum abundance” agenda, and he is candid about the target: “in-home satellite broadband”. Commissioner Olivia Trusty’s statement stresses national security and positioning “heading into the World Radiocommunications Conference next year”.

The 12.7 GHz band: two directions at once

The 12.7 GHz band has always been an uplink band for satellites. The FCC now adopts what it calls “an aggressive, bi-directional frequency-use plan”, and the detail is where the legal interest lies.

On the uplink side, individually licensed gateway and feeder link earth stations can transmit to both geostationary (GSO) and non-geostationary (NGSO) satellites. Earth stations in motion aboard aircraft and ships can uplink to GSO satellites, but only aircraft at altitude. The old restriction that limited GSO uplinks in part of the band to international systems goes.

On the downlink side, the FCC adds a new primary allocation for NGSO satellites transmitting to blanket licensed user terminals, including terminals on land, at sea and in the air. That adds 525 megahertz of contiguous downlink spectrum next to the 10.7 to 12.7 GHz range that NGSO broadband systems already use, which the order describes as a “more than 25% increase”.

To make both directions work in the same spectrum, the FCC sets an order of priority. NGSO downlink terminals must accept interference from gateway and feeder link uplinks. The FCC declined to go further in either direction. SES and other GSO operators had argued that the band should stay uplink only and that any ubiquitous use should be for uplinks; SpaceX and the Commercial Spaceflight Federation had asked for GSO uplinks to be made secondary to NGSO downlinks. The order rejects both and says “we need not choose between extremes.”

There is also a buffer. The 12.7 to 12.75 GHz slice sits next to the 12.2 to 12.7 GHz band used for satellite television. The FCC lifts its 2022 application freeze in 12.75 to 13.25 GHz, effective on Federal Register publication, but replaces the freeze in 12.7 to 12.75 GHz with a permanent bar on new satellite uplink applications, to protect satellite television receivers and NGSO downlinks next door.

Incumbents get ten years

The 12.7 GHz band is not empty. Fixed microwave links, broadcast auxiliary services and cable relay stations use it. The FCC keeps them, but changes the fixed and mobile allocations from primary to secondary, makes the long-running freeze on new terrestrial licences permanent, and grandfathers existing stations with protected status for 10 years from Federal Register publication. After that date they can keep operating, but “on an unprotected, non-harmful interference basis” towards satellite services.

Strictly, this part is an Order of Proposed Modification under section 316 of the Communications Act: affected licensees will have 30 days from Federal Register publication to protest, and a contested modification will not become final for that licensee unless the Commission orders otherwise. The Commission had asked about sunsets of three, five or ten years. It chose the longest, saying the record did not support a particular period and that 10 years “errs on the side of caution”. For incumbents that is a predictable horizon. For satellite operators it means that, in the places where terrestrial links are still running, the band will not be fully clear until the mid 2030s.

The 42 GHz band: gateways and light licensing

The 42 GHz band gets a new primary allocation for satellite downlinks to individually licensed and Nationwide Non-site earth stations. Terrestrial fixed service keeps its primary status; mobile service becomes secondary for non-federal use. Unlike the 12.7 GHz band, consumer terminals are not allowed: a new footnote, NG150, limits use to gateway and feeder link earth stations.

The Commission says it wants to authorise these gateways through “light licensing”, the database driven model already used for terrestrial links in the 70/80/90 GHz bands, where a licensee holds a non-exclusive nationwide licence and registers individual sites. It does not build that system here. It defers the mechanics to other proceedings and will process applications under existing rules in the meantime.

Radio astronomy was the main technical concern. The 42 GHz band sits next to 42.5 to 43.5 GHz, which is used for radio astronomy. The FCC requires applicants to certify that their power flux density and equivalent power flux density will not exceed the limits that already apply internationally at protected radio astronomy sites, and rejects calls for tighter aggregate limits. Astronomers who followed the Dark-Sky Association v FCC litigation will note that this is a protection built into the rules rather than left to case by case review.

A deliberate step away from the ITU table

This is the part of the order I would read twice. The order itself notes that, while 12.7 to 12.75 GHz is allocated for satellite downlinks in ITU Regions 1 and 3, “the majority of the 12.7 GHz band is limited to uplinks” in the international fixed-satellite allocations. The Americas are in Region 2. The FCC acknowledges the mismatch and says that “rather than viewing the current international allocations as an impediment”, it forms “an independent decision with the best interests of the American public in mind.”

National administrations are allowed to do this, but at a price. Under the Radio Regulations, a frequency assignment that departs from the international table can only be used on the condition that it does not cause harmful interference to, and does not claim protection from, stations operating in accordance with the table. A US NGSO downlink in the 12.7 GHz band will therefore have weak standing internationally until the table catches up, which is presumably why the order notes commenters’ hope that US action “may encourage the availability of the band internationally”. For the filing mechanics behind this, see our explainer on how ITU filings decide who gets spectrum and orbital slots.

The practical consequence for operators is that the US decision gives domestic licensing certainty, not global certainty. A constellation planning to use 12.7 GHz downlinks outside the United States still needs the international allocation, and the next chance to seek one is the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027.

The two new proposals

The item does not stop at the order. The first further notice seeks comment on more satellite spectrum: segments of the Ku and Ka bands (13.75 to 14.0 GHz, 14.5 to 15.35 GHz, 15.43 to 15.63 GHz, 18.6 to 18.8 GHz, 19.4 to 19.6 GHz and 29.1 to 29.25 GHz), 138.25 gigahertz in the D-band above 100 GHz, inter-satellite service rules, including a proposal to implement the outcome of the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference, and the technical criteria needed to extend light licensing to other bands.

The second, which the FCC calls the WSS further notice, builds on its March 2026 “Spectrum Abundance for Weird Space Stuff” proposal (FCC 26-13). That earlier notice looked at spectrum for what the Commission calls “emergent space operations”: spacecraft and commercial operations that use radio to control a spacecraft or communicate with it, but that do not provide satellite communications to the public. Think in-orbit servicing, refuelling, manufacturing and lunar missions. The new notice adds four candidate areas for telemetry, tracking and command and mission data: 2360 to 2395 MHz, 13.25 to 13.4 GHz, 100 to 300 GHz, and bands used for inter-satellite links. It also asks whether such operations should be limited to directional antennas.

This matters beyond spectrum. Servicing and proximity missions have struggled to fit existing US licensing categories, a problem we discussed in our piece on the Swift rescue attempt and mission authorisation. Spectrum is one of the few areas where the FCC can create a clear path without new legislation, and these proposals suggest it intends to.

How it fits the FCC’s wider rewrite

The order amends the FCC’s new Part 100 rules rather than Part 25. That is because on 23 July 2026 the Commission released its Space Modernization for the 21st Century order (FCC 26-47), which replaces Part 25 with a new Part 100 built around what it calls a “licensing assembly line”. The order notes that those rules are not yet effective. Lawyers preparing applications for the 12.7 or 42 GHz bands will need to track both sets of rules through the transition.

The spectrum order also sits alongside the FCC’s security agenda. The Secure Space Act passed by the Senate in September, which we covered in our piece on the two satellite security bills, would bar licences for entities linked to the Covered List. More spectrum makes FCC authorisation more valuable, and therefore makes the conditions attached to it more significant.

Who gains and who should be careful

The clearest winners are NGSO broadband operators. The order cites SpaceX and Amazon’s Kuiper among the commenters and identifies NGSO downlinks to consumer terminals as the main use. Aviation and maritime connectivity providers using GSO satellites also gain uplink access through earth stations in motion.

GSO operators did not get the uplink only band they asked for, but they kept co-primary uplinks, protection for satellite television in the adjacent band, and access for aeronautical and maritime terminals. Terrestrial incumbents have a decade of protection but no growth path in the 12.7 GHz band. Radio astronomers have certified limits at notified sites.

For lawyers, the points to watch in licence applications are the interference hierarchy (NGSO downlinks accept interference from gateway uplinks), geographic proximity conditions near GSO uplink sites, and coordination with incumbent terrestrial stations during the 10-year sunset. Any operator relying on downlinks near the band edge should also look closely at the permanent freeze in 12.7 to 12.75 GHz.

What I would watch

The first is Federal Register publication. The freeze lift in 12.75 to 13.25 GHz takes effect on publication, the 10-year sunset runs from that date, most rule changes take effect 60 days later, and the comment deadlines on both further notices run 30 and 60 days from it. As of 18 October 2026 the item had not appeared in the Federal Register.

The second is petitions for reconsideration and section 316 protests. GSO operators lost the argument over priority in the 12.7 GHz band, terrestrial incumbents have a 30-day window to protest the modification of their licences, and the order’s interference rules for earth stations in motion are detailed enough to invite requests for clarification.

The third is the international track. The US position going into the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference will show whether the FCC’s “independent decision” on 12.7 GHz downlinks becomes a push for a change to the international table.

The fourth is the WSS rulemaking. If the FCC adopts dedicated spectrum for servicing and lunar missions, it will have done more to give those missions a recognised regulatory home than any other US agency so far.

Anuj KumarEditor-in-Chief

Anuj Kumar is the founder of Legal Desire Media and publishes Fashion Law Journal and Space Law Journal.

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