FCC Commission Chair Brendan Carr, while speaking at the US Chamber of Commerce Global Aerospace Summit this week, praised the new wave of innovation and growth in the Space sector. “As a result, we now have new constellations of low-earth satellites that make it possible to deliver high-speed internet to remote locations and connect Americans who have been stuck on the wrong side of the Digital Divide.”

However, while he celebrated the news that Starlink was moving forward with its purchase of EchoStar spectrum, and that AST SpaceMobile had started to roll out its new D2C satellite system, he cautioned that the main competition in these next stages for satellite-based connectivity is coming from China.

“China has invested heavily in two constellation networks with plans to deploy over 27,000 satellites between them. China is aggressively marketing their new satellite broadband services globally, and claims to be in negotiations with dozens of countries. The big worry isn’t that US companies might lose market share to Chinese competitors. The problem is that we know from the Great Firewall of China that they use technology to control information flow and heavily censor,” stated Carr.

“A world where the Chinese Communist Party is providing internet access and controlling the access of information to billions across the globe would be less prosperous and more dangerous,” he warned.

Commissioner Carr told delegates that the FCC had totally streamlined the way it did business, noting: ”We’re clearing out satellite application backlogs and reducing processing times at a record pace. Back in January, for instance, we had roughly 1,450 earth station applications pending before the Commission. Today, we’ve already cut that backlog in half, and we keep chipping away.”

Nevertheless, he said he was optimistic – largely because the Chinese had only launched 120 satellites as they had not yet figured out how to build reusable rockets.

“I am optimistic because I am betting on you. Thanks to America’s innovators and entrepreneurs, the US is not only winning this Space Race 2.0, we are dominating it. But to borrow a rocket analogy, we are not through Max Q just yet. We need to keep powering on. We need to go all-in on space innovation to make the gap between the US and China so wide that we assure American leadership in this vital growing sector for not just years, but decades to come. I pledge to you that the FCC will do everything in its power to make sure the US sets the pace in the new Space Race,” added Carr.

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Categories: Blogs, Broadband, Inside Satellite, Satellite

Tags: china, FCC, Space, usa