- No surprise: SpaceX urges the FCC to allow upper C-band licensees to satisfy construction requirements by deploying satellite coverage
- The FCC will vote on a plan to hold the upper C-band auction next year
- Analysts say the “SpaceX overhang” may linger until the upper C-band auction plays out
SpaceX representatives met with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) staff this week to discuss changes they’d like to see ahead of the FCC’s July 22 vote on the upper C-band auction procedures.
Among its asks: SpaceX wants the FCC to enable licensees to satisfy construction requirements by deploying satellite coverage that can provide high-power, wide area coverage where terrestrial deployment may be challenging.
“Such a technology neutral approach benefits American consumers by accelerating broadband connectivity in sparsely populated areas faster than the deployment pace of terrestrial networks,” SpaceX told the agency. “Rural Americans (who often face coverage gaps) could gain service years sooner.”
As revealed in an ex parte filing this week, SpaceX also urged the FCC to reject proposals by CTIA to accept low-power, low-density or localized deployments such as IoT or point-to-point services in its buildout requirements, saying they don’t meet the service levels specified in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The OBBBA directed the FCC to auction high-power licenses no later than July 2027.
FCC to vote next week
The FCC will vote at its commission meeting next week to hold an auction of 160 megahertz of spectrum in the upper C-band (3.98-4.14 GHz) next year. It will be the first really big auction since the FCC got its auction authority reinstated. The lower C-band auction raised more than $80 billion and was dominated by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.
Now all eyes are on SpaceX and what it does in the upper C-band auction. The company’s S-1 filing ahead of its historic IPO left no doubt about its wireless ambitions: SpaceX will compete to be the preferred connectivity provider in rural, suburban and urban areas.
Whether that’s accomplished by buying an existing mobile network operator, striking an MVNO or building its own network is anybody’s guess.
The SpaceX factor
The “SpaceX overhang” over the Big 3 wireless carrier stocks will likely linger until there are more definitive proof points about what SpaceX is going to do, and that might mean waiting until everyone sees what it does in the upper C-band auction slated for next year, TD Cowen analysts noted in a report this week.
“Any scenario in which Starlink Mobile enters the U.S. wireless market (MNO, MVNO, M&A, buy remaining EchoStar 5G assets) would drive various ranges of downside,” the analysts said. “Investors are mulling over probability-weighted scenarios, revising terminal values and hence the Big 3 stock pullback. Most unfortunately, the SpaceX overhang will likely linger until we have more definitive proof points such as the upper C-band auction slated for spring 2027.”
In the meantime, the operators can focus on 5G and fiber to the home (FTTH) convergence, which can prove to be the inoculation against Starlink Mobile, they added.
Next big auction
The AWS-3 auction, which was a small auction compared to the lower C-band auction that closed in 2020, raised about $3.5 billion when it ended last month, with Verizon being the biggest spender.
SpaceX might have used that auction as a practice run-up to the bigger C-band auction. It bought just two AWS-3 licenses, Cincinnati and the Gulf of America/Mexico, for about $8.5 million.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said this week that the upper C-band auction is set to raise anywhere from $30 billion to $60 billion for the U.S. Treasury.
“We're going to lead the world in terms of having a big chunk of spectrum for new competitive high-speed services” and that’s going to drive down prices for consumers, he said at the Hill Nation Summit on Wednesday.
More about SpaceX, Starlink Mobile and spectrum:
Now SpaceX is talking to Charter about a mobile offer: report