SpaceX is taking its 12 GHz battle with Dish Network to the trenches, urging Starlink users to send comments to the FCC and lawmakers in support of Starlink.
Some Starlink customers received an email Tuesday urging them to contact the FCC and members of Congress in order to support SpaceX in its ongoing dispute with Dish, The Verge reported. Reports circulated on Reddit as well.
“Today we ask for your support in ending a lobbying campaign that threatens to make Starlink unusable for you and the vast majority of our American customers,” the email states.
They’re making it super easy for fans to join in the effort, setting up a form so that they can fill in a few sections and send messages to their lawmakers and the FCC. In the form for the FCC, it ends with a familiar refrain that SpaceX has been using: Reject efforts to change the rules for the 12 GHz band and conclude the process.
The message also refers to an analysis that SpaceX recently submitted to the FCC about how a terrestrial mobile service would cause harmful interference to SpaceX’s Starlink terminals in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band more than 77% of the time, resulting in outages 74% of the time.
Opponents like RS Access previously pointed out that SpaceX has access to plenty of other spectrum to accomplish its broadband mission. However, SpaceX insists that the 12 GHz band has become one of the most important and intensely used spectrum bands for Americans who depend on satellite services. In fact, SpaceX said it depends on the 12 GHz band for the workhorse frequencies in critical downlink services to serve Americans “in every corner of the nation.”
Dish did not immediately respond to Fierce’s request for comment.
V. Noah Campbell, CEO of RS Access, said it’s an open proceeding and the public can comment as they see fit. His company is focused on reviewing the latest FCC filing by SpaceX and preparing a response.
“This is an engineering-driven proceeding,” he said. “We’re having our engineers review it and we’ll respond when we have a comprehensive view of the impact it has on the process that we’re going through.”