SpaceX is pressuring the FCC to go after the European Union over fears it will enact new regulations that threaten to block Star Link and other American satellite companies.
“The Commission should not wait for the situation to deteriorate further, but should act now to establish clear policies that discourage foreign administrations from adopting protectionist policies,” the company told the FCC in a statement. letter last week.
At stake is the proposed EU Space Law to regulate EU and non-EU satellite operators, including “gigaconstellations” like Starlink. Last month, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr indicated that he considers the proposed regulation protectionist and warned that the commission could respond with “reciprocity” to the Block European satellite companies. of the US market.
However, SpaceX is urging the FCC to ramp up the pressure by codifying the threat of reciprocity into actual policy. “If the Commission does not take action until the EU implements these protectionist policies, it will have no choice but to impose reciprocal restrictions on EU-licensed satellite operators,” the company wrote in an 8-page letter. “By clarifying its market access policies now, the Commission can prevent an escalation of the trade war before it happens.”
(Credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
SpaceX is pushing for tit-for-tat rules, arguing that “the protectionist push in Europe is clear and strong,” and could cause other foreign governments to enact similar policies. “The United States cannot afford to take this concerted effort lightly or wait passively to see what happens.”
SpaceX has he complained that the EU Space Law would “impose unnecessarily burdensome obligations”, which the company had previously noted as “incorrect, inflexible or unworkable”. This appears to include how EU rules would require Starlink to limit satellites. glow to “at least magnitude 7,” or what SpaceX says is a “technical infeasibility.” The draft rules also give the EU the power to carry out on-site inspections, noted Tim Belfall, director of UK-based installer Starlink Westend WiFi.
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In its letter, SpaceX says it does not want a trade war, only to “preserve” open access policies for satellite operators. “The clear and growing threat of protectionist policies abroad illustrates that wishful thinking and naïve optimism alone will not achieve this result,” the letter adds.
The company took a hardline approach, alleging that rival U.S. satellite operator Viasat plans to “weaponize protectionist policies abroad against other American operators.” SpaceX even urged the FCC to sanction US satellite companies that “advocate and benefit from protectionist policies” by treating them as foreign suppliers.
“Viasat advances these anti-competitive scare tactics toward an obvious goal: marketing its own services as an alternative,” adds SpaceX. “Viasat sells ‘state-of-the-art, low-cost GSO (geostationary) satellites’ that it falsely claims ‘can offer the same speeds and prices to users’ as LEO constellations, as well as state sovereign systems (for which Viasat offers turnkey solutions).”
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Viasat did not immediately respond to a request for comment. but the company he told the commission earlier this month that it is important to distinguish protectionist policies from the “legitimate substantive requirements” of foreign regulators.
“For example, there are legitimate reasons why a WTO (World Trade Organization) member country could require satellite operators seeking to serve its market to comply with sustainability and orbital safety requirements that have not been adopted in the United States (such as limits on aggregate collision risk),” Viasat said. “Certain U.S. operators may not like those requirements and may be unwilling or unable to comply with them, but that does not mean that those requirements are inherently unreasonable or discriminatory barriers to market access, or that the United States should respond by abandoning the WTO presumption.”
The FCC has been soliciting public comments on the issue as it considers new proposals focused on reciprocity of access to the satellite market. The EU also published an updated draft of the Space Law, which some critics have criticized. crashed for being too vague or adding rules that could prevent American companies from complying.
About our expert
Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
Experience
I have been a journalist for more than 15 years. I started as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I currently reside in San Francisco, but previously spent more than five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I have covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing more than 600 stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over expanding satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I scoured the FCC files for the latest news and drove to remote corners of California to test Starlink cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly collecting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint report investigation with motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages took me camping vs. Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. Now I’m tracking how the AI-driven memory shortage is affecting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so hit the comments with your feedback and send me tips.
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