On March 14, the United States may adopt a draft establishing rules for adjusting the market for direct connection of smartphones to satellites. The largest operators are already ready to start using these technologies.
Rules for regulating satellite communications
On February 21, Jessica Rosenworcel, chair of the US Federal Communications Commission, announced that she had given the new draft to other members of the organization for discussion. It concerns the regulation of the sphere of satellite Internet for mobile devices.
The possibility of organizing a direct connection of a smartphone to satellites has been a hot topic for quite a long time. Satellite companies working in alliance with mobile operators demonstrated this technology a few months ago. Connecting your smartphones to the satellite Internet without an intermediate device in the form of a terminal is no longer fantastic. At least in the USA.
Now everyone is waiting for the rules to be adopted on how to organize this whole process. The main issue is to obtain “certain licensed, flexible-use spectrum currently allocated to terrestrial services.” In a simpler way, the rules should establish how to properly purchase the right to use certain frequencies in a certain territory.
Possible problems
According to Rosenworcel’s statements, the draft of rules may be adopted on March 14. SpaceX, whose partner on earth is T-Mobile and AST SpaceMobile, working together with AT&T, are already ready to submit applications and install equipment as soon as it becomes officially known how to do this. However, other candidates may prevent them from dividing the ranges in the United States.
For example, Omnispace plans to use a range that partially overlaps with where SpaceX plans to work with T-Mobile. And they say that in this case they will have obstacles. It is still unclear how this issue will be resolved.
It is also unclear whether the agency will be able to push through the requirement for operators to monitor the position of smartphones and ensure that emergency services are called for rescue.
According to spacenews.com
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