FCC unlocks spectrum to support advanced satellite services | Hacker News Reader

FCC unlocks spectrum to support advanced satellite services

fcc.gov

135 pointsimpish920865 comments

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This is up at 17 GHz. It's not the attempt to take over the 900MHz ISM band.

I about had a heart attack before I clicked on it and realized that.

Same.

There's plenty of spectrum available. For purchase. Contact T-Mobile or Verizon.

Maybe there is a way to force them to release unused spectrum for free?

Or force regular auctions on them.

(Maybe this is already the case, idk)

There is a way, which is through buildout enforcement. Basically, if you don't meet buildout deadlines and cover x% of pops within a specific time period, you forfeit the license. It should probably be a lot more stringent and with tighter deadlines, but the mechanism already exists.

It hasn't ever really been an issue with any spectrum that they've bought in the past, and it has only ever been a concern with mmWave spectrum, because the costs of coverage are much higher than were ever anticipated with their tiny effective ranges. Anything below 3GHz seems to get built out and used extremely quickly.

Dish I think is sitting on a bunch with endless extensions

I think of the 20B+ the shambling humonculus AT&T has pocketed for fiber deployment and think the process is captured.

> if you don't meet buildout deadlines and cover x% of pops within a specific time period, you forfeit the license

The issue you have to surmount is this reduces the value of the licenses in the short run. Which means less cash for the seller (the public) now versus a recurring productive asset.

The useless response is to decry hyperbolic discounting. A productive response would think through how to design the auction such that the public would prefer to have the productive, recurring stream of revenue versus some shiny thing today.

> The issue you have to surmount is this reduces the value of the licenses in the short run. Which means less cash for the seller (the public) now versus a recurring productive asset.

Well, that assumes the public isn't really benefiting from the products and services that can actually take advantage of that spectrum. Making less in license fees is probably a good trade-off if your phone is faster or you get interesting and affordable satellite services.

> There is a way, which is through buildout enforcement.

LOL, DISH squatted nationwode spectrum for years and it wasn't until the tmo/sprint merger that they did more than build a single tower in Colorado. I don't think I've ever seen the FCC seriously enforce the buildout requirements since any license holder can say 'but its hard we need more time/money'

Sure. Tax it like any other property.

What other properties get taxed? Real estate is the only one I can think of. Precious metals, musical instruments, patents / copyrights / trademarks, vehicles, electronics, lumber. . . none of these properties are taxed.

Slight correction cars are typically taxed. Usually in 3 different ways. Fuel, property and tag. Now not all states call it a tax. Not all states have all 3.

I’ve never seen property tax on a car. What states have that? And EV’s don’t typically pay a fuel tax, which wouldn’t be a property tax anyway. Registration/tag is certainly not a property tax.

There’s a difference between taxing ownership of a property and taxing activities you use the property for. The latter includes things like fishing licenses, but nobody would say there’s a property tax on fishing rods.

NC has property tax on cars. It is different from state to state what is in or out or what they call it.

The biggest mistake the FCC made was using spectrum to maximize revenue and not value for taxpayer.

Yep. Spectrum should be allocated based on Harberger taxation (sometimes called self-assesed tax)

Wait until Apple puts 17ghz receivers in their iPhones

Is that feasible in an iPhone? Could an iPhone with just one more radio become a sat phone?

They can already send texts over satellite so probably pretty feasible. Idk though

It's much harder at higher frequencies because you need to point your antenna more accurately. That's pretty hard to do by hand on a phone.

Alternatively, the aperture of the antenna on the satellite can be increased. So high-gain from space, but low gain on Earth, which is the approach of AST SpaceMobile.

How is that not one way communication?

https://www.starlink.com/gb/business/direct-to-cell

They already have 30 GHz hardware (for 5G mmwave)!

I don’t think either spectrum will be feasible for direct to cell satellite communication in the short term, though.

IIRC SpaceMobile showed direct-to-cell satellite communication recently with 5g. Still to be seen if they or someone else (SpaceX?) can make it work large scale.

SpaceX has been launching direct-to-cell satellites for a bit now (a couple per Starlink batch), IIRC they said they need to get to ~300 such satellites to provide consistent service in at least some places. Although, again, worth emphasizing that 'large scale' in this case is still just to provide emergency coverage in places with no other coverage.

So far they have 233 DTC satellites in space, but some are still raising their orbit and not operational yet.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/09/24/live-coverage-spacex-t...

The KU band is already used by satellites, A tweet discussing what this actually means would be more useful than this fcc.gov page

this comment explains: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662676#41664592

This is the US FTC. How are they able to boldly mandate what frequencies are used in space for orbiting satellites given their jurisdiction is scoped to the domestic USA? Would that not be the ITU's jurisdiction - FTC dont set communication rules for the entire galaxy.

It's already approved by ITU, just was not by FCC. In fact this Ku band is already used in downlink by Starlink as described in comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662676#41664592

I thought the Ku-band user access frequencies used by Starlink was 12GHz down and 14.5GHz up?

As those are the easy to license frequencies globally. Not to mention, 17GHz is far away from 12GHz and 14.5GHz, so the antenna complexity also goes up. And the teardowns of civilian Starlink terminals have not shown dual band antennas so far.

It's about downlinks, so, obviously, they're mandating it for within their area of jurisdiction, i.e. within the US. Plus, the notice itself says that this approval only brings the US more into alignment with international allocations.

Was this always in the works, or has recent 'competition' pushed them to speed up unlocking this bandwidth? (e.g. Apple's Emergency SOS, Starlink Direct to Cell, etc)

See page 3 onwards here;

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-22-63A1.pdf

It's been in the works since 2007 to allow direct space-earth communication in that band, with the big push to allow much wider service coming in 2020.

Would this be the ASS spectrum or the ASS band?

Nice, the CBRS spectrum and municipal auctions were a big success in opening up new markets

I like this narrower approach the FCC is taking

The amount of spectrum the US military "owns" in the United States is absurd and needs to be adjusted - and at this point the excuses for why they can't vacate are making them look geriatric

Yet another reminder. What happens when you have organizations that aren't beholden to outside pressure

As a compromise, I am willing to add conditions something to the effect of some of the spectrum ceded by the military can be temporarily reclaimed for exclusive in case of a ground invasion on the continental United States. I mean I don't think a ground invasion on the continental United States is likely but if putting language like this makes the military feel better, I am ok with it.

The US is thankfully positioned in the world where it's pretty geographically isolated compared to let's say for example EU countries. I agree, I don't think a large scale ground invasion could ever be a possibility as they would be detected and get rekt way before even reaching anywhere near the US.

> can be temporarily reclaimed for exclusive in case of a ground invasion on the continental United States

This is a silly line to draw. In an existential conflict, the military gets what it wants. Commandeering spectrum would be a basic part of war powers; we’ve done it before and would do it again for stakes much lower than an invasion of the homeland [1].

So the practical value of such a proposal is in messaging. Given the threshold wouldn’t have covered the attacks on Pearl Harbor, 9/11 or even a nuclear first strike, the only thing messaged is unreasonableness.

Put another way, were I a lobbyist for the military to the Congress, I would want someone to propose this language. Because it lets one brand, with a laugh, the entire effort as being as ridiculous as the caveat.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-confiscated-half-b...

You are free to attempt to take it, but I recommend you first become a farmer if you want to have any success in fighting them.

Militaries increasingly use civilian technology instead of developing bespoke tools. For example the military could use some of their spectrum for proprietary wifi but it would be uneconomic.

Show us on the chart where they hurt you

https://www.ntia.gov/sites/default/files/publications/januar...

I've loved this chart for years and wish they'd update it more frequently. I think this 2016 version is the most recent.

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