Facilitating More Intensive Use of Upper Microwave Spectrum

Document 2025-21805 is a Proposed Rule published by the Federal Communications Commission in the Federal Register on December 3, 2025. In this document, the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC" or "Commission") seeks comment on a variety of measures aimed at facilitating more intensive use of spectrum in the 24 GHz, 28 GHz, upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz, 47 GHz, and 50 GHz bands (together, the UMFUS bands). These bands are shared between the terrestrial Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service (UMFUS) and the Fixed-Satellite Service (FSS) pursuant to the Commission's rules. When the Commission created this framework in 2016, it assumed that UMFUS bands would be used intensively as a part of terrestrial 5G networks, that earth station deployment in the bands would be relatively light, and that the technical rules adopted were necessary to protect terrestrial UMFUS operations but not too onerous to chill FSS earth station siting. Since that time, it has become more clear how the bands are being used for terrestrial service and how growth in the space economy has increased interest in using the UMFUS bands for FSS. Given these shifts, the requirements contained in the Commission's rules have proven to be an impediment to processing earth station applications in the bands. Accordingly, the NPRM would seek input on a variety of mechanisms that might facilitate more intensive use of the UMFUS bands and improve licensing efficiency. View the original at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/03/2025-21805/facilitating-more-intensive-use-of-upper-microwave-spectrum.

No. Document 2025-21805 is not classified as economically significant under Executive Order 12866. Economically significant rules require OIRA review and are estimated to have impacts of $100 million or more per year.