The FCC's New NGSO–GSO Sharing Rules Take Effect, and the 1990s EPFD Limits Give Way to Good-Faith Coordination

What happened

On 13 July 2026 the FCC's Report and Order titled Modernizing Spectrum Sharing for Satellite Broadband took effect, thirty days after publication in the Federal Register on 13 May. The Commission adopted it 30 April as FCC 26-26. The order rewrites how non-geostationary systems share the Ku- and Ka-band downlinks at 10.7–12.7 GHz, 17.3–18.6 GHz, and 19.7–20.2 GHz with geostationary fleets. It replaces the equivalent-power-flux-density limits, the EPFD caps set in the late 1990s to stop low-orbit satellites from swamping GSO reception, with performance-based protection criteria and a framework of good-faith coordination in which NGSO and GSO operators bargain for interference protection by private agreement. A pair of amendments to sections 25.146 and 25.289 is indefinitely delayed.

The change did not arrive without objection. SES and Eutelsat both asked the FCC to open a rulemaking on an aggregate limit on total NGSO-into-GSO interference, the concern that many constellations, each compliant on its own, together raise the noise floor a GSO fleet sees; the Commission did not grant it. DirecTV sought larger GSO-arc-avoidance angles and Astranis asked for additional reference links. The FCC framed the reform as unlocking up to a seven-fold capacity increase for space broadband and $1.6bn to $19.9bn in projected gains. The Space Bureau had already granted SpaceX an EPFD waiver on 9 January 2026 and Amazon a similar waiver on 20 February, so the order codifies a direction the Bureau was already taking case by case.

Why it matters for dispute formation

A fixed limit is a bright line: either a system stays under the EPFD mask or it does not, and the record of compliance is a computation. Swap it for good-faith coordination and performance criteria, and the dispute moves from a formula to a negotiation. Who has to coordinate with whom, what counts as good faith, what technical information each side must exchange, and what a GSO operator can claim when it says its reception has degraded, all of that now lives in bilateral agreements and in the FCC's after-the-fact reading of them. The absence of an aggregate limit is the sharpest edge: a GSO operator harmed by the combined effect of several compliant constellations has no single ceiling to point to, so its remedy has to be assembled from the coordination record.

For spectrum and regulatory teams the work is concrete. Map which of your downlinks fall in the three bands and whether your protection rested on the EPFD mask. Paper the coordination agreements now, because the agreement is the protection. Document the interference you actually see, since a performance claim needs measurements, not a mask violation. And watch the seam between US rule and ITU treaty: the equivalent-power-flux-density limits still sit in the Radio Regulations, ITU-R studies run into 2027, and an operator with rights in multiple jurisdictions has to hold a US performance regime and an international EPFD regime at the same time. The record that decides the first NGSO-GSO interference fight under the new rules is the coordination correspondence being written this quarter.

Who's exposed

What to watch

• How the first NGSO-GSO coordination disputes under the new performance criteria are framed, and whether the FCC reads 'good faith' strictly or loosely.
• Whether SES, Eutelsat, or another GSO operator renews the push for an aggregate-interference limit through a fresh rulemaking or a petition for reconsideration.
• The indefinitely delayed amendments to sections 25.146 and 25.289, and when the Commission lets them take effect.
• The seam with the ITU: whether WRC-27 studies move toward relaxing EPFD limits internationally or leave US rules diverging from the Radio Regulations.