FCC clears SpaceX to send satellite service straight to phones in Alaska and the rest of the U.S.

Two Federal Communications Commission bureaus on Tuesday authorized SpaceX to send service from a planned constellation of 15,000 low-orbit satellites directly to phones across the United States, including Alaska. They also waived a rule that would have required SpaceX to lease the airwaves from a wireless carrier.

The FCC calls the service supplemental coverage from space: satellites filling in where cell towers don't reach. Its rules have assumed a satellite company would partner with a ground-based carrier and lease that carrier's spectrum. SpaceX is instead buying its own licenses from EchoStar, a deal the same two bureaus approved May 12.

Because SpaceX would hold both the satellite and ground licenses, "there is no need for a lease," the order says. No one who commented on the application opposed that request, it notes.

SpaceX can't use those airwaves until the second and final step of the EchoStar purchase closes. The order covers the contiguous U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, American Samoa, and Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. SpaceX has said it plans to serve "ordinary mobile handsets."

SpaceX must have half the satellites operating by Oct. 7, 2032, and all of them by Oct. 7, 2035. The 15-year authorization starts once the first satellite reaches orbit.

Because no carrier would stand between the satellite and the phone, the FCC attached a 911 condition. SpaceX must follow the interim satellite 911 rule as if it were a mobile carrier: route 911 calls and texts to the right emergency dispatch center, file annual reports on how that is working and tell customers how far its 911 service reaches. SpaceX had said in its application that it "may be required to provide E911 services to the extent they are not provided by a terrestrial partner."

The waiver applies only to SpaceX. Any future buyer of the licenses would have to follow the leasing rule or win its own waiver.

On part of the spectrum, which 47 federal earth stations also use, SpaceX must accept interference from other authorized users, avoid causing it and shut down immediately if told it is causing harmful interference.