Billionaires battle for satellite spectrum – 10/02/2024 – Market

In early August, when corporate activity was on a summer break, Elon Musk’s SpaceX quietly opened a new front in a global battle over a scarce and precious resource: radio spectrum.

Their target was an obscure international regulation that governs the way spectrum, the invisible highway of electromagnetic waves that enables all wireless technology, is shared by operators of satellites in different orbits. And the weapon of choice was the United States regulator, the Federal Communications Commission.

On August 9, SpaceX asked the FCC (US Federal Communications Commission) to relax globally agreed power limits on transmissions like its own, in low Earth orbit: up to 2,000 km above the planet’s surface.

Equivalent power flux density rules, as they are called, were established more than 20 years ago to ensure that signals from low Earth orbit did not interfere with systems in higher geostationary, or fixed, orbit.

SpaceX, which owns the world’s fastest-growing satellite broadband network, Starlink, told the regulator that these “antiquated power constraints” were not suitable for “the modern space age.”

It went on to charge that the international process that governs the rules has been hijacked by an alliance between the operators of older geostationary systems and “America’s fiercest adversaries.”

At stake were “US global competitiveness in the new space economy” and the future of satellite communications, he said.

While many in the industry believe a review is long overdue, discussions have been tense and divisive, according to participants.

On one side were startup technology companies whose low-Earth orbit satellite networks are threatening the business models of more established competitors with high-speed, low-latency broadband services.

On the other side were these incumbent geostationary operators like Viasat and SES, who have operated systems since the early days of satellite broadband and are concerned that any changes could interfere with their networks.

Governments such as Japan, France, Germany and Brazil shared some of the concerns about interference, but also had broader strategic questions about proposals that would further increase the power of these players.

While welcoming the connectivity that Musk’s network offers, some governments have also expressed fears about a growing reliance on a service run by a private individual whose interventions into political and cultural issues have often been controversial.

What might appear at first glance to be a technical and archaic dispute has become a proxy for a broader philosophical clash: over the power of US billionaires in a loosely regulated strategic region of space; the implications for competition; for national sovereignty; and for equal access to the economic benefits that low Earth orbit offers.

In the five years since its first launch, the Starlink network has grown to more than 6,000 operational satellites, two-thirds of all active spacecraft orbiting Earth today. It is operating services in more than 100 countries and has proven indispensable to Ukrainian forces in the war against Russia and in emergencies such as the earthquake that shook Japan’s Noto peninsula this year.

Soon, Project Kuiper — founded by Jeff Bezos’ Amazon — will begin rolling out its network, with services from low Earth orbit expected to begin next year. It plans to have more than 3,000 satellites providing broadband services and, like SpaceX, will have its own launch provider.

That means a pair of American companies, backed by two of the world’s richest people, could have overwhelming dominance over critical territory in the emerging space industry.

There is a reluctance to do anything that would make SpaceX and eventually Project Kuiper even more dominant.

The radio spectrum has long been a focus of geopolitical and competitive tensions. This range of electromagnetic waves makes all modern wireless technology possible, carrying data for everything from mobile communications to emergency services, navigation and WiFi.

But spectrum is finite, and most of the usable bands of radio spectrum have been allocated for specific purposes, from TV broadcasting to emergency services and WiFi communications.

Now, with the world’s appetite for wireless connectivity exploding, these bands are becoming congested; and nowhere is this congestion felt more than in the rapidly evolving commercial space sector.

As a result, some satellite operators are seeking “alternative routes” to gain access to more spectrum, such as attempting to relax power limits.

Every three to four years, the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) brings together spectrum regulators from more than 190 nations together with industry to review, if necessary, the Radiocommunication Regulations, an international treaty governing the use of radio frequency spectrum. and orbits.

It is there that an agreement is reached on which bands will be used for which purposes. However, ITU member states still have ultimate sovereignty to decide how to allocate and regulate spectrum within their own borders. They can set the terms and conditions of operation nationally.

Based on this, SpaceX asked the FCC to relax power limits in the US. If it can win support from the US regulator, ITU membership will be “between a rock and a hard place”, says a space industry executive. “Not everyone wants to follow the US,” but they will have to recognize the violation.

Some ITU member states that opposed the proposal believe that any changes to power limits should be part of much broader reforms to how spectrum is managed.

Some question whether SpaceX’s dominant position in providing launch services gives it an unfair advantage in negotiating spectrum-sharing deals with companies seeking to put their satellites into orbit.

However, Patricia Cooper, founder of Constellation Advisory and former vice president responsible for regulatory affairs at SpaceX, points to the fact that SpaceX has signed launch contracts with supposed competitors such as Canada’s Telesat or the low-Earth orbit operator OneWeb. “It’s hard to say they are using launch capabilities as an anti-competitive weapon,” she says.

Still, some governments are questioning whether there should be more coordination between competition and licensing authorities.

The FCC says SpaceX’s petition is still pending. While the US has supported the principle of a rule change, the FCC chairwoman recently acknowledged concerns about Starlink’s dominance.

“We have a player [que tem] almost two-thirds of the satellites that are in space right now and have a very large share of the internet traffic,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the FCC, at a recent conference in Washington. “The way I see it, our economy doesn’t benefit from monopolies. .”