AT&T, RWA in 'Desperate' Campaign Against SCS Testing: SpaceX
The Rural Wireless Association and AT&T apparently are coordinating "a desperate, 11th-hour campaign" to stop SpaceX from testing its mobile supplemental coverage from space payload with "baseless procedural claims while offering no substantive reason" for denying its pending special temporary…
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authority application, SpaceX said Monday in docket 23-135. The companies' arguments (see 2310100055, 2310130038) that SpaceX's STA application should have to go through the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology ignore that the Space Bureau in consultation with the Wireless Bureau can clearly grant it under agency rules. SpaceX also rejected claims its STA application requires numerous waivers. RWA General Counsel Carri Bennet emailed that while the FCC's SCS rulemaking is pending, there are legitimate concerns about adjacent channel interference and experimental authorizations allow for testing in a real-world environment. "SpaceX’s desire to plow through and obtain Special Temporary Authority so that it can begin commercial operations to customers prior to the completion of the FCC’s rulemaking and analysis raises a huge red flag," she said. "SpaceX needs to cool its rockets and let the rulemaking run its course and, in the interim, utilize the experimental authorization process for testing the validity of its claims."