The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has moved to recognise the growing proliferation and popularity of Ka-band services in the United States by issuing a declaratory order to establish procedures for issuing licenses to US-based earth stations…
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has moved to recognise the growing proliferation and popularity of Ka-band services in the United States by issuing a declaratory order to establish procedures for issuing licenses to US-based earth stations operating in the Ka-band.
The new procedures will allow earth stations with ‘routine’ Ka-band antennas to communicate with all US-licensed satellites and with those non-US-licensed satellites on the Ka-band Permitted List without additional regulatory approval. As part of this the Commission’s rules now include standardised technical requirements for Ka-band earth stations.
The FCC stated that the reason for the move was to “expedite our licensing of Ka-band earth stations and allow Ka-band services, including broadband services, to be more quickly and readily available to consumers.”
It is also putting in place a procedure that will enable all non-US licensed satellites operating in the Ka-band to be placed on its ‘Permitted List’. This Permitted List procedure is similar to the one that has been used since 2003 to place non-US-licensed satellites operating in the conventional C-band and Ku-band on a Permitted List for those frequency bands.
The FCC was prompted into its actions by the Satellite Industry Association (SIA), which back in 2006 suggested putting in place the Ka-band earth station procedures.
