How Cell Phones Communicate with Satellites

Cell phones communicate with satellites by sending ordinary LTE or 5G radio signals to a low Earth orbit base station licensed under FCC rules adopted March 15, 2024. The satellite carries a cellular base station and a phased array antenna that forms narrow beams on the ground. The network removes most of the delay and Doppler shift, and phones built to 3GPP Release 17 remove the rest by computing their own position from GNSS and reading satellite orbit data from the broadcast. A handset transmitting 200 milliwatts across a slant range of 1,247 kilometers faces about 160 decibels of free space path loss, so the satellite array must supply the gain that closes the link. On October 6, 2026, the FCC released order DA 26 1078, which authorizes 15,000 SpaceX satellites between 326 and 335 kilometers. Measured performance is modest. Crowdsourced readings of the first Starlink service in the PCS G block showed a median received power of negative 121 decibel milliwatts, 24 decibels below the terrestrial network of the same carrier, and an estimated 4 megabits per second per beam. AST SpaceMobile reported a 98.9 megabit per second peak to an unmodified smartphone in its first quarter 2026 results, using a far larger array. Capacity depends on spectrum, and spectrum depends on FCC licensing. The supplemental coverage from space rule at 47 CFR 25.125 requires a lease with terrestrial licensees and limits out of band emissions to negative 120 decibel watts per square meter per megahertz. The agency relaxed that limit by 9.4 decibels for two 5 megahertz segments in March 2025. Detailed Findings How Does a Handset Close a Link to a Satellite Hundreds of Kilometers Overhead? A handset closes the link to a satellite because the satellite supplies tens of decibels of antenna gain that the phone cannot. The reference handset in the 3GPP study is an omnidirectional device with 0 dBi antenna gain, power class 3 output of up to 200 milliwatts, which is 23 decibel milliwatts, and a receiver noise figure of 7 decibels. The arithmetic fits on one line. At 1.99 gigahertz, a satellite at 330 kilometers altitude seen at a 10 degree elevation angle sits 1,247 kilometers away, and free space path loss over that distance is 160.3 decibels. A 23 decibel milliwatt uplink therefore arrives at the satellite aperture at about negative 137 decibel milliwatts. Thermal noise across a 5 megahertz LTE channel is negative 107 decibel milliwatts, or about negative 104 with a 3 decibel receiver noise figure. The signal to noise ratio equals the satellite antenna gain minus 33 decibels. A satellite array with 40 dBi of gain therefore delivers about 6.7 decibels of signal to noise ratio before implementation losses, which supports the lowest LTE modulation and coding schemes. Forty dBi at this frequency requires an aperture near 30 square meters at 60 percent efficiency, and the resulting beam is about 2 degrees wide, which paints a footprint near 11 kilometers across at nadir. These figures are my own calculation from the stated assumptions. As a nuclear trained submarine officer I learned to treat a link budget as a ledger in decibels. Every loss on one side of the ledger must be matched by a gain on the other, and every gain is bought with power, aperture, or time. Orbit does not change the ledger. The phone brings 23 decibel milliwatts and no aperture, so the satellite pays the entire balance with a large array and a low noise receiver. What Do 3GPP Releases 17 and 18 Change in the Phone and the Network? Release 17, completed in 2022, added the first normative support for 5G New Radio over non terrestrial networks, and the work in Releases 18 and 19 extends coverage and moves toward regenerative payloads that place the base station on the satellite. The earlier technical reports set the ground rules: TR 38.811 defined the deployment scenarios and channel models, TR 38.821 evaluated approaches for timing, frequency, and random access, and TR 36.763 did the same for narrowband IoT and eMTC devices. Three changes matter most in the handset. The phone reads satellite ephemeris, an epoch time, a common timing advance, and a timing drift rate from system information, specified in TS 38.331. The phone uses its own GNSS position with that data to compute its round trip delay and its Doppler shift, then applies a UE specific timing advance and pre compensates its uplink frequency, using the uplink timing procedures in TS 38.213. A scheduling offset called K offset lengthens the gap between a downlink grant and the uplink transmission it triggers, so the uplink timing still follows the grant once the round trip delay is included. Hybrid automatic repeat request needed the most surgery. NR in Release 16 uses up to 16 stop and wait processes, and Release 17 extends that to 32. Thirty two processes still cannot cover the round trip of a low Earth orbit or geostationary link, so the standard allows a network to disable HARQ feedback for the downlink and reuse processes before a full round trip passes. The NTN bands in Release 17 include n255 in the L band and n256 in the S band, and Qualcomm announced a modem on February 26, 2024, with integrated narrowband NTN support and Release 17 compliance. Direct to cell service on unmodified handsets sits outside those specifications. The satellite pre compensates the downlink carrier and sampling frequency and post compensates the uplink, because the delay of a satellite link exceeds what the LTE timing advance range handles alone. The LTE timing advance spans about 0.67 milliseconds of round trip, which corresponds to a cell radius near 100 kilometers. A beam only 11 kilometers across leaves a delay spread of tens of microseconds, so the satellite can remove the bulk delay at the beam center and keep every phone inside the LTE range. How Much Delay and Doppler Shift Does a Low Earth Orbit Satellite Add? A low Earth orbit satellite adds between 8 and 26 milliseconds of round trip delay and up to about 48 kilohertz of Doppler shift at 2 gigahertz. The 3GPP study tabulates a round trip delay for a transparent payload at 600 kilometers of 25.77 milliseconds at the worst case 10 degree elevation and 8 milliseconds at the minimum, with a regenerative payload halving the figures to 12.89 and 4 milliseconds. A geostationary transparent payload runs from 477.48 to 541.46 milliseconds. The Doppler figure follows from orbital speed. A satellite at 330 kilometers moves at 7.71 kilometers per second, and its component along the line of sight reaches about 7.2 kilometers per second at 10 degrees elevation. That speed produces a shift of 24 parts per million, which is 48 kilohertz at 1.99 gigahertz and equals roughly three LTE subcarriers of 15 kilohertz each. A phone receiving that offset uncorrected could not decode the downlink, which is why the network removes it and why Release 17 phones correct their own uplink. Altitude moves every term in the ledger. At 1,414 kilometers, the altitude planned for the Globalstar C 3 satellites, the same 10 degree geometry stretches the slant range to 3,502 kilometers, raises path loss to 169.3 decibels, which is 9 decibels worse than at 330 kilometers, and lifts the bent pipe round trip to about 47 milliseconds. A very low orbit at 326 to 335 kilometers buys that 9 decibels back, and the FCC authorized those shells on October 6, 2026, an altitude described as a record low. What Do Measurements of a Live Direct to Cell Network Show? Crowdsourced measurements from October 2024 through April 2025 show a satellite link that delivers about 24 decibels less received power than a terrestrial tower and a throughput near 4 megabits per second per beam. Starlink used the PCS G block with a 5 megahertz channel, 1910 to 1915 megahertz on the uplink and 1990 to 1995 megahertz on the downlink, and the service carried text messages during the measurement period. The median reference signal received power was about negative 121 decibel milliwatts on the satellite cell and negative 97 on the terrestrial network of the same carrier. Median signal to noise ratio was 0 decibels on the satellite against 5 decibels on the tower. Spectral efficiency computed from those readings averaged 0.79 and had a median of 0.64 bits per second per hertz, which on 5 megahertz yields roughly 3 to 4 megabits per second for the whole beam. Phones registered the satellite cell under its own network code, mobile country code 310 with mobile network codes 830 or 210, separate from the terrestrial code 260. The first constellation of about 400 direct to cell satellites was complete by December 2024. By the end of December 2025, more than 650 satellites supported the service. The FCC order of October 6, 2026 authorizes 15,000 satellites for the service, more than 23 times the number now flying. How Do Starlink, AST SpaceMobile, and Globalstar Differ in Design? Starlink flies many small satellites with an eNodeB on each, AST SpaceMobile flies fewer satellites with very large arrays, and Globalstar serves Apple devices from mobile satellite service spectrum at a higher altitude. Each design trades path loss, beam count, and spectrum differently. SpaceX agreed in September 2025 to buy EchoStar AWS 4 and H block spectrum for about $17 billion and sought authority for 15,000 next generation satellites with 20 times the throughput of the first generation. Under the FCC order of October 6, 2026, commercial operation in the EchoStar bands cannot begin until the second step of that transaction closes, scheduled for November 30, 2027. The acquired 2 gigahertz spectrum is not supported in current phones, so handset radio support has to follow the satellites. AST SpaceMobile received FCC authority on April 21, 2026 for 248 satellites using 700 and 800 megahertz low band spectrum with AT&T, Verizon, and FirstNet. The first quarter 2026 report cites a 98.9 megabit per second peak from a Block 1 BlueBird to an unmodified smartphone, a target of about 45 BlueBirds in orbit during 2026, quarterly revenue of $14.7 million, and cash of about $3.5 billion. Nearly 60 mobile network operators with more than 3 billion subscribers have agreements. Globalstar holds L band, S band, and C band spectrum, allocates about 85 percent of its capacity to Apple, and announced in November 2024 a 48 satellite C 3 constellation at about 1,414 kilometers and 52 degrees inclination. Apple holds 20 percent of the company and committed up to $1.5 billion in funding and prepayments. How Do Phones Move Between Terrestrial Towers and Satellites? Phones move between towers and satellites through a satellite state machine in the telephony stack that treats the satellite cell as a separate network. Android 15 introduced the satellite telephony layer, a SatelliteManager application interface, and an ISatellite hardware abstraction layer that controls modem power, listening windows, and packet transmission. The Android telephony layer overrides default terrestrial routing during satellite attach windows, applies a network policy when the device attaches to a satellite PLMN, and offers two data tiers: constrained data for core services and allowlisted apps, and unconstrained data subject to hardware and carrier configuration. Supported services include text to 911, SMS, MMS, and RCS messaging, and location sharing. Carriers push configuration through CarrierConfigManager or GSMA TS.43 entitlement servers. ETSI Technical Report 103 611, published in June 2020 by the committee on satellite earth stations and systems, defines five integration scenarios for bent pipe systems, from direct 5G access by satellite connected devices to indirect access through local base stations, and identifies the standardization work each one needs. That report remains the European reference for how a satellite leg attaches to a 5G core. How Do Other Countries Allocate Spectrum for Direct to Device Service? Other countries allocate direct to device spectrum through existing mobile bands, and the ITU is studying a global allocation for 2027. WRC 23 adopted Resolution 253, which sets World Radiocommunication Conference 2027 agenda item 1.13 to study direct connection between space stations and IMT user equipment in the 694 and 698 to 2,700 megahertz range. Working Party 4C leads the studies with Working Party 5D, and the proposed methods range from no change to a secondary allocation to a primary allocation with conditions, backed by strict power flux density limits, beam shaping, and sidelobe control. In the United Kingdom, Ofcom made regulations on June 18, 2026 that exempt handsets from licensing when they connect to direct to device service in the 900 megahertz band, effective July 10, 2026, after approving a license variation for VodafoneThree in April 2026. In Australia, the ACMA reported on September 24, 2024 that IMT based satellite direct to mobile service can operate under existing Australia wide spectrum licenses without further ACMA approval. Legal and Regulatory Implications This section addresses FCC regulation of spectrum only. The FCC governs satellite direct to cell service through its supplemental coverage from space rules, which pair a satellite operator with a terrestrial licensee and cap the unwanted radiation that reaches terrestrial networks. What Does the FCC Supplemental Coverage from Space Rule Require? The FCC supplemental coverage from space rule requires a satellite operator to hold a lease with every co channel terrestrial licensee in a geographically independent area. The Commission adopted the Report and Order, FCC 24 28, on March 15, 2024 in GN Docket No. 23 65 and IB Docket No. 22 271, and the rules took effect on May 30, 2024. Under 47 CFR 25.125, an applicant must hold or seek a nongeostationary or geostationary space station license or market access grant and must certify that lease notifications or applications under 47 CFR 1.9047 are on file. The bands are listed in 47 CFR 2.106, paragraph d33i: 614 to 652 and 663 to 698 megahertz in the 600 megahertz band; 698 to 769, 775 to 799, and 805 to 806 megahertz in the 700 megahertz band; 824 to 849 and 869 to 894 megahertz in the 800 megahertz band; 1850 to 1915 and 1930 to 1995 megahertz in broadband PCS; and 1915 to 1920 and 1995 to 2000 megahertz in the AWS H block. Authority becomes effective only after three events: grant of the space station application, approval of the lease, and grant of an equipment certification that meets the technical standards of part 22, 24, or 27. Handsets operate as earth stations licensed by rule under 47 CFR 25.115, paragraph q. Applications are exempt from the processing rounds and first come first served procedures of 47 CFR 25.137, 25.157, and 25.158. The rule sets a uniform out of band emission limit of negative 120 decibel watts per square meter per megahertz, measured as a terrestrial power flux density 1.5 meters above ground. How Has the FCC Applied the Out of Band Emission Limit? The FCC has relaxed the out of band emission limit once, by 9.4 decibels for two 5 megahertz segments, and held every other band to negative 120. A November 26, 2024 order authorized SpaceX and T Mobile to provide supplemental coverage from space with 7,500 Gen2 satellites and deferred the SpaceX waiver request. On March 7, 2025, the Space Bureau and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau issued DA 25 197 in GN Docket No. 23 135, which conditionally waived 47 CFR 25.202, paragraph k1. SpaceX asked for negative 110.6 decibel watts per square meter per megahertz, a limit 9.4 decibels looser than the rule and about 8.7 times the permitted flux. The waiver covers only the 5 megahertz segments at 1985 to 1990 and 1995 to 2000 megahertz that border the PCS G block, and it requires SpaceX to resolve harmful interference promptly or stop operating under the waiver. SpaceX said that without relief, about 1,500 satellites would force it to reduce active beams or beam power and would cost about 20 percent of network throughput. The parties filed opposing calculations. AT&T predicted an 18 percent reduction in average network throughput in a PCS C block market analysis. Verizon calculated an interference to noise ratio near negative 3 decibels. T Mobile predicted 0.2 to 1.8 percent degradation in an outdoor use case. EchoStar, Verizon, AT&T, and the Rural Wireless Association opposed the waiver, and T Mobile supported it. How Did the FCC Authorize SpaceX and AST SpaceMobile in 2026? The FCC issued three major grants in 2026 that together authorize more than 15,000 satellites for direct to device service. On January 9, 2026, the Commission approved an additional 7,500 Gen2 Starlink satellites in new shells between roughly 340 and 485 kilometers, authorizing direct to cell connectivity outside the United States and supplemental coverage inside it, and waived an obsolete rule that had prevented overlapping beam coverage. On April 21, 2026, the FCC granted AST SpaceMobile authority for a 248 satellite constellation to provide supplemental coverage from space in 700 and 800 megahertz spectrum, with milestones of 124 satellites by August 2, 2030 and the full constellation by August 2, 2033. That grant followed a license issued August 6, 2024 for the first five BlueBird satellites. On October 6, 2026, the FCC granted in part the SpaceX application for 15,000 satellites in nine shells between 335 and 326 kilometers under order DA 26 1078. The order authorizes EchoStar bands at 1695 to 1710, 2000 to 2020, 2180 to 2200, 1915 to 1920, and 1995 to 2000 megahertz, lets SpaceX keep using the T Mobile PCS G block, waives the rule that requires a lease with a terrestrial mobile operator, and defers the requests for 2020 to 2025 megahertz and for 1429 to 2690 megahertz outside the United States. Half of the constellation must be in orbit by October 7, 2032 and the full system by October 7, 2035. Commercial operation in the EchoStar bands cannot begin until the second step of the EchoStar transaction closes. What Spectrum Proposals Does the FCC Have Pending? The FCC has placed on the agenda of its October 29, 2026 open meeting a notice of proposed rulemaking that would add 482 megahertz of bands for supplemental coverage from space and seek comment on direct to device rules within licensed bands. A companion notice proposes auctioning 25 megahertz in the 1675 to 1695 and 2020 to 2025 megahertz bands, where winning licensees could use terrestrial systems or direct to device space links. For a terrestrial licensee, each of these rules sets the price of its neighboring spectrum: a lease under 47 CFR 1.9047 converts a co channel license into a revenue stream from a satellite partner, and the emission limit sets the interference its neighbors must tolerate. For a satellite operator, the same rules fix the number of beams and the power each satellite can radiate over a market. Open Questions Which handsets will add radios for the EchoStar 2 gigahertz bands, and when? The acquired spectrum is not supported in current phones, and commercial operation in those bands waits for a transaction closing scheduled for November 30, 2027. Satellite operators, handset makers, and carriers need a date for chipset support before the 20 times throughput target has meaning to a subscriber. Does the 9.4 decibel waiver stay confined to the two 5 megahertz segments as the constellation grows? SpaceX stated that about 1,500 satellites would force beam power reductions without relief, and the authorized count is now 15,000. The terrestrial licensees that filed opposing throughput estimates range from 0.2 percent to 18 percent, and no field measurement has yet narrowed that range. Can AST SpaceMobile reach 124 satellites by August 2, 2030? The company targets about 45 BlueBirds in orbit during 2026, reported $14.7 million in first quarter revenue, and guides to $150 million to $200 million for 2026. The milestone schedule will test that production and launch cadence. How will the proposed 482 megahertz of new supplemental coverage bands interact with the lease requirement? The October 6, 2026 order waived the lease requirement for SpaceX, and the rulemaking will show whether the Commission treats that waiver as a template or an exception. What will WRC 27 adopt for the 694 and 698 to 2,700 megahertz range? Power flux density limits, beam management rules, and a decision between a secondary and a primary allocation will set the international terms under which a US constellation serves a roaming subscriber. The next piece in this series examines the October 29, 2026 FCC open meeting items line by line, and it shows how the proposed 482 megahertz expansion and the 25 megahertz mid band notice change the lease economics for terrestrial spectrum holders. Source List Primary regulatory sources, ranked from most to least authoritative. 1\. Federal Communications Commission, Single Network Future: Supplemental Coverage from Space; Space Innovation, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 24 28, GN Docket No. 23 65, IB Docket No. 22 271, adopted Mar. 15, 2024 and published in the Federal Register Apr. 30, 2024. This source sets the bands, the lease requirement, and the negative 120 decibel watt emission limit. 2\. 47 C.F.R. § 25.125, Applications for Supplemental Coverage from Space, current electronic code. This source states who may apply and when authority takes effect. 3\. Federal Communications Commission, Space Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, DA 25 197, GN Docket No. 23 135, Mar. 7, 2025. This source records the 9.4 decibel waiver and the positions of the parties. 4\. Federal Communications Commission, news release announcing approval of additional Gen2 Starlink satellites, Jan. 9, 2026. This source gives the shells and service scope of the January grant. 5\. Federal Communications Commission, Space Bureau, DA 26 1078, order granting in part the SpaceX direct to device application, Oct. 6, 2026. The order text could not be retrieved directly; details come from trade reports that link to it, and the order number is confirmed by one such link. Primary engineering sources. 6\. 3GPP, TR 38.821, Solutions for NR to Support Non Terrestrial Networks, sections 4.2 and 7.1.1. This source supplies the reference scenarios and the round trip delay figures. TS 38.331, TS 38.213, TR 38.811, and TR 36.763 are cited for their scope, and their normative text was not retrieved in full. 7\. European Telecommunications Standards Institute, TR 103 611 V1.1.1, June 2020. This source defines five satellite integration scenarios with 5G. 8\. Garcia Cabeza et al., Direct to Cell: A First Look into Starlink Direct Satellite to Device Radio Access Network through Crowdsourced Measurements, arXiv 2506.00283, May 30, 2025. This source supplies the received power, signal to noise, and spectral efficiency measurements. 9\. Lin et al., 5G from Space: An Overview of 3GPP Non Terrestrial Networks, arXiv 2103.09156, Mar. 16, 2021, revised July 7, 2021. This source explains timing advance, GNSS pre compensation, and HARQ changes. Secondary technical and industry sources. 10\. Android Open Source Project, Satellite Connectivity documentation. This source describes the Android 15 satellite framework. 11\. AST SpaceMobile, First Quarter 2026 Results, May 11, 2026, and trade reports of the FCC grants of Apr. 21, 2026 and Aug. 6, 2024. These sources supply the satellite counts, milestones, and financial figures. 12\. Trade and financial reports on the October 6, 2026 SpaceX order, the EchoStar transaction, the October 29, 2026 FCC agenda, Globalstar, and the Qualcomm modem announcement. These sources are secondary and corroborate each other on the figures used. 13\. Rohde and Schwarz, Direct to Cell technology page; Viavi Solutions, Non Terrestrial Networks test page. These sources describe how test equipment emulates delay and Doppler for direct to cell and 5G NTN. 14\. International Telecommunication Union, WRC 23 Resolution 253 and WRC 27 agenda item 1.13, as summarized in a 2026 national regulator brief; Ofcom, Enabling Satellite Direct to Device Services in Mobile Spectrum Bands 2026; Australian Communications and Media Authority, Satellite Direct to Mobile Services Regulatory Issues, 2024. These sources describe spectrum allocation outside the United States. 15\. Barros, From Cell Towers to Satellites: A 2040 Blueprint for Urban Grade Direct to Device Mobile Networks, arXiv 2507.14188, July 2025. This source was reviewed but not relied on for any figure, because its stated path loss and signal to noise values are internally inconsistent; the link budget in this report is recalculated independently. Bibliography Android Open Source Project. Satellite Connectivity. Mountain View: Google, accessed October 12, 2026. https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/satellite. Australian Communications and Media Authority. Satellite Direct to Mobile Services Regulatory Issues. Consultation opened November 9, 2023; outcome published September 24, 2024. Barros, Sebastian. From Cell Towers to Satellites: A 2040 Blueprint for Urban Grade Direct to Device Mobile Networks. arXiv 2507.14188, July 2025. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.14188. Converge Digest. Globalstar Unlocks New Spectrum, Advances C 3 Constellation. September 15, 2025. European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Seamless Integration of Satellite and or HAPS Systems into 5G and Related Architecture Options. ETSI TR 103 611 V1.1.1. Sophia Antipolis: ETSI, June 2020. Federal Communications Commission. Single Network Future: Supplemental Coverage from Space; Space Innovation. Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 24 28, GN Docket No. 23 65, IB Docket No. 22 271, Mar. 15, 2024. Federal Communications Commission. Space Exploration Holdings, LLC, Order, DA 25 197, GN Docket No. 23 135, Mar. 7, 2025. Federal Communications Commission. FCC Approves Next Gen Satellite Constellation Enabling Better, Faster Broadband throughout America. News release, January 9, 2026. Federal Communications Commission. Space Exploration Holdings, LLC, Order, DA 26 1078, Oct. 6, 2026. Fierce Network. SpaceX Talks about What It Wants to Do with Its New 2 GHz Spectrum. 2025. Garcia Cabeza, Jorge, Javier Albert Smet, Zoraida Frias, Luis Mendo, Santiago Andres Azcoitia, and Eduardo Yraola. Direct to Cell: A First Look into Starlink Direct Satellite to Device Radio Access Network through Crowdsourced Measurements. arXiv 2506.00283, May 30, 2025. https://arxiv.org/html/2506.00283v1. Lin, Xingqin, Stefan Rommer, Sebastian Euler, Emre A. Yavuz, and Robert S. Karlsson. 5G from Space: An Overview of 3GPP Non Terrestrial Networks. arXiv 2103.09156, March 16, 2021, revised July 7, 2021. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.09156. Ofcom. Consultation: Enabling Satellite Direct to Device Services in Mobile Spectrum Bands. April 15, 2026, with regulations made June 18, 2026. Rohde and Schwarz. Direct to Cell Technology. Company technical page, accessed October 12, 2026. Third Generation Partnership Project. TR 38.811, Study on New Radio to Support Non Terrestrial Networks; TR 38.821, Solutions for NR to Support Non Terrestrial Networks; TR 36.763, Study on NB IoT and eMTC Support for Non Terrestrial Networks; TS 38.331, Radio Resource Control Protocol Specification; TS 38.213, Physical Layer Procedures for Control. https://www.itecspec.com/3gpp/38.821/s/7.1.1. Telecoms Tech News. FCC Details D2D Spectrum Proposals and Approves SpaceX Satellite Network. October 8, 2026. Via Satellite. FCC Grants AST SpaceMobile Commercial Authorization for Direct to Device Service. April 22, 2026. Viavi Solutions. Non Terrestrial Networks. https://viavisolutions.com/node/118215. Business Wire. AST SpaceMobile Provides Business Update and First Quarter 2026 Results. May 11, 2026. Broadband Breakfast. FCC Approves SpaceX Request for 15,000 Direct to Device Satellites. October 7, 2026. Satnews. FCC Grants SpaceX Approval for 15,000 Satellite Very Low Earth Orbit Direct to Device Constellation. October 7, 2026. Android Authority. Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 Modem Announcement. February 26, 2024. Data Center Dynamics. FCC Approves AST SpaceMobile Usage of BlueBird Direct to Smartphone Satellites. August 2024. Light Reading. SpaceX Cleared for Starlink Capacity Boost. January 13, 2026. Uganda Communications Commission. Brief of Agenda Item 1.13, WRC 27 Preparations. July 2026. United States Code of Federal Regulations. 47 C.F.R. §§ 1.9047, 2.106, 25.115, 25.125, 25.137, 25.157, 25.158, 25.202. Interested in analysis about the intersection of tech, policy and the law? Check out my Substack channel. https://theinnovationattorney.substack.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theinnovationattorney.substack.com/subscribe