FCC: D2C is set for ubiquitous connectivity
April 24, 2026
The Federal Communications Agency (FCC) made a major announcement on April 23rd, specifying what it described as “the way for American leadership in next-gen, direct-to-device (D2C) connectivity”. The FCC said that D2C is a critical infrastructure.
However, while some rulings help some of the players involved, other decision are more negative. For example, FCC code DA 26-391 gives full commercial authorisation granted to AST SpaceMobile, including 248 satellites approved. The FCC also confirmed AST Spacemobile’s Supplemental Coverage from Space requests and D2C operations. The regulatory overhang that has been hanging over this company for years is officially gone.
However, AST Spacemobile’s move to operate in the 1980-2020 MHz and 2160-2200 MHz is dismissed “with prejudice” and AST’s request for authority to operate in the Echostar S Band is also dismissed with prejudice.
SpaceX also suffered. Its request to use the Ligado L Band in the US and outside of the US is dismissed with prejudice. SpaceX’s request for its D2C constellation for operations outside of the US in Globalstar bands is dismissed with prejudice by the FCC.
The various FCC decisions place SpaceX and AST Spacemobile as the likely duo to achieve global success.
Professor Tim Farrar (of TMF Associates) stated: “This new FCC order is super complicated, but basically is telling everyone to stay in their lane: Globalstar gets exclusivity in its Big LEO spectrum, and SpaceX’s Starlink gets FCC backing in AWS-4 (2000-20/2180-2200MHz) worldwide, but attempts to access Big LEO and L-band are dismissed.”
He added: “Where it gets complicated is that AST is told it can’t use 2GHz, which is very problematic for SatCo [its European joint-venture with Vodafone in the EU]. And then the Ligado part on L-band is even more complicated, saying Ligado should have “a fair opportunity to compete in the global MSS marketplace” while “also maintain[ing] existing international agreements and complex technical coordination arrangements Viasat’s path forward with Equatys is more complicated and a Lynk/Omnispace merger will presumably be conditioned on not using the 2000-20/2180-2200MHz spectrum, just like AST.”