Brazil Opens Six Mobile Bands to Satellite Direct-to-Cell, and Makes the Carrier Partnership the Price of Entry
On 2 July 2026 Brazil's ANATEL cleared satellites to reach ordinary phones across six mobile bands, on a secondary basis that keeps terrestrial carriers first in line. A satellite operator cannot sell the service on its own. It has to ride a Brazilian carrier's spectrum, which turns the carrier contract into the market.
What happened
On 2 July 2026 ANATEL's board approved a revision of Brazil's frequency-allocation plan that lets satellites connect directly to ordinary phones over six mobile bands: 700, 850, 900, 1800, 1900/2100, and 2500 MHz. The allocation is secondary. Terrestrial mobile networks keep primary priority, and a satellite link cannot impair the incumbent's use of the band. The rule attaches a hard condition to market access. A satellite operator cannot offer the service on its own; it has to partner with the Brazilian carrier that holds the primary right to the spectrum, which means Vivo, Claro, or TIM. ANATEL's outorgas superintendence has up to 90 days to write the technical terms, the per-band limits and interference parameters, and commercial service is not expected before 2027, starting with text and emergency messaging.
The framework is already being tested. On 21 July ANATEL authorized Telefônica's Vivo to run up to 50 terminals from 19 July to 22 October in the 2.5 GHz band, at 2,567.5 and 2,687.5 MHz, on the same secondary basis that requires it to suspend transmissions if it harms a primary user. The regulatory act does not name the satellite partner, though Vivo is in talks with Starlink. This sits alongside a separate track: in May 2026 ANATEL cleared AST SpaceMobile's non-geostationary system through a local subsidiary, a constellation of up to 248 satellites, but limited its S-band grant to a narrow block with no coordination priority. Two paths into the same market, both routed through a Brazilian licensee.
Why it matters for dispute formation
When the rule says a satellite operator cannot sell the service standalone, the carrier contract becomes the business. Everything a general counsel would negotiate now sits in that agreement: the revenue split and whether the deal is wholesale or resale, the allocation of interference liability and indemnity when the secondary signal has to yield, exclusivity and whether one carrier can lock a satellite operator or the operator can multi-home across all three, term and termination, and the coverage and service-level commitments. The sharpest dependency is structural. The satellite operator's whole Brazilian service rests on the carrier keeping the license, so a change in the carrier's spectrum position flows straight through to the satellite service. This is a machine for producing commercial-arbitration exposure, built into the market-access rule itself.
The secondary status is the other fault line. Because the incumbent holds priority, the satellite link has to cease on harmful interference, exactly as Vivo's test license spells out. Expect fights over how interference is measured, what counts as harmful, and who eats the outage when a forced suspension cuts service, cross-claimed among the satellite operator, the partner carrier, and third-party incumbents. Brazil's choice is worth reading against its peers. The United States conditions the satellite operator directly and hands it an FCC authorization; the United Kingdom leans on the carrier's own licence through an exemption. Brazil sits closer to the UK, but goes further by making the carrier partnership a mandatory condition of entry, which concentrates bargaining power in three incumbents and hard-wires a contractual chokepoint. There is a counterparty overlay too. Brazil froze Starlink's local accounts in 2024 during a dispute involving a separate Musk company, a reminder that a D2D deal anchored on Starlink carries political and counterparty risk that lives above the spectrum question.
Who's exposed
Exposed as the operator with the most to gain and no way to sell it alone: Brazil is Starlink's second-largest market, but reaching phones there means signing a Brazilian carrier, accepting a secondary status that yields to terrestrial users, and carrying the residual friction from Brazil's 2024 asset-freeze on its accounts.
Exposed as the holder of a separate May 2026 Brazilian constellation approval on a constrained S-band block with no coordination priority, now facing the same rule that a direct-to-cell service reaches the market only through a licensed carrier partner.
Exposed as the three carriers that hold the primary spectrum rights and so become mandatory gatekeepers: Vivo already runs the first ANATEL-supervised test terminals, and each carrier absorbs the interference liability that rides with the band it lends a satellite partner.
Exposed as the primary users the secondary allocation is built to protect, holding priority in the shared bands and the right to force a satellite signal to yield, which makes interference measurement and forced suspension the first place a dispute forms.
The historical parallel · The FCC's AST SpaceMobile Supplemental Coverage from Space grant (United States, April 2026)
The FCC solved the same problem, satellites reusing mobile-carrier spectrum to reach phones, by licensing the satellite operator directly and fencing the grant with power-flux-density limits, deployment milestones, and coordination with the terrestrial carriers whose bands it borrows. Brazil made the opposite structural choice: no standalone satellite authorization at all, and market access only through a carrier that holds the primary right. The contrast is the lesson. In the US the operator is a licensed principal with its own obligations; in Brazil the operator is a contractual guest, and the interference conditions and suspension duties that the FCC wrote into a license instead migrate into a private carrier agreement, which is where the Brazilian dispute will be argued.
What to watch
- The 90-day technical rules ANATEL must write, and whether they set workable interference thresholds and per-band limits for secondary satellite use.
- Which carrier signs which satellite operator, and whether any deal carries exclusivity that locks Starlink, AST, or Lynk to a single Brazilian gateway.
- Whether Vivo's 2.5 GHz trial converts into a commercial Starlink arrangement, and how forced-suspension liability is papered between carrier and satellite partner.
- Residual Brazil–Starlink friction after the 2024 asset-freeze episode, as a counterparty and political-risk factor for any deal built on Starlink.
Sources
- The Rio Times — Anatel Approves Direct-to-Cell, Opening Door to Starlink
- TELETIME — Brasil aprova atribuição de espectro para serviço móvel por satélite
- Convergência Digital — Anatel decide que serviço de satélite D2D só será ofertado em parceria com as teles
- Telecom Review Americas — AST SpaceMobile Secures Brazil Approval to Launch Direct-to-Mobile Satellite Service
- CNBC — Brazil supreme court unfreezes assets of Elon Musk's Starlink, X after taking fines (2024 backdrop)
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Get the Intelligence BriefFor general information only; not legal advice, and no attorney–client relationship is formed through this article. Company names appear because the companies are exposed to a public development — not as a statement of wrongdoing or a predicted outcome. Figures are as reported by the linked sources.