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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.

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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.

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