HAWTHORNE, Calif. — SpaceX's ambition to turn Starlink into a full-fledged wireless carrier just got a major regulatory lift. At its October open meeting in Washington, the FCC voted to advance a proposal that would dramatically expand the spectrum available for satellites to connect directly to ordinary phones — and loosen a rule that has long stood between SpaceX and the big three U.S. carriers.
What the FCC Approved
The commission adopted a notice of proposed rulemaking that would open an additional 482 MHz of spectrum to direct-to-phone satellite service, raising the number of bands eligible for Supplemental Coverage from Space from five to 13, according to the FCC's fact sheet. A companion item proposes auctioning 25 MHz in the 1675–1695 MHz and 2020–2025 MHz bands for terrestrial, direct-to-device, or combined use.
The vote does not hand SpaceX any spectrum outright; it opens a public comment period, with comments due 60 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register. But it sets the direction of travel — and that direction increasingly favors the satellite-direct model SpaceX has pioneered as it races to scale a network it hopes will blanket the country from tens of thousands of cell sites.
The Rule That Matters Most
Buried in the proposal is a structural change SpaceX has sought for years. Today a satellite operator must lease spectrum from every carrier holding co-channel licenses across an entire region. The new approach would replace that with a simpler certification: that the operator either has coexistence agreements covering only the areas it plans to serve, or holds the terrestrial licenses itself.
