SpaceX cellular Starlink would cause interference to AT&T, Verizon: FCC document

2024.08.20 3 min read

SpaceX’s Cellular Starlink service plans to offer widespread and effective coverage to users, but AT&T and Verizon are urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reject the company’s plan.

AT&T and Verizon both sent letters to the FCC earlier this month stating that the SpaceX Starlink system would cause network interference, making their product offerings less effective to their customers.

“Specifically, AT&T’s technical analysts shows that SpaceX’s proposal would cause an 18% average reduction in network downlink throughput,” AT&T said in a document to the FCC.

SpaceX sets sights on Starlink direct-to-cellular service launch in Fall 2024

PCMag first reported on the document.

In June, SpaceX pushed to receive a waiver from the FCC that would allow Starlink Cellular to operate beyond normal radio frequency parameters. The company said it would prevent interference with other networks despite an increase in radio emissions:

“Moreover, waiving the rule would avoid placing artificial caps on the number of satellites that an operator may use to provide supplemental coverage, which in turn would limit the number of end users that the network could benefit.”

SpaceX backed up its claims by performing its own study in February that seemed to prove interference was a non-issue. However, AT&T and Verizon did their own studies that show a different outcome:

Credit: AT&T via FCC

Verizon also said that:

“SpaceX’s proposal would undermind the Commission’s core goal of protecting incumbent terrestrial licensee operations from SCS satellite operations in adjacent bands by subjecting them to harmful interference.”

These companies are just a couple of the many that have filed complaints with the FCC regarding interference concerns. SpaceX is not taking the complaints lying down, though. It believes the companies are doing whatever they can to stall SpaceX’s approval.

Last week, it said:

“Indeed, each time that SpaceX has demonstrated that it would not cause harmful interference to other operators—often based on those parties’ own claimed assumptions—those competitors have moved the goalposts or have claimed their analysis should not have been trusted in the first place. These operators’ shapeshifting arguments and demands should be seen for what they are: last-minute attempts to block a more advanced supplemental coverage partnership and siphon sensitive information to aid their own competing efforts.”

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