Key points
- NextNav rises about 26% after SpaceX's FCC request
- SpaceX wants NextNav's proposed band considered for satellite service
- SpaceX's filing discloses no agreement with NextNav
NextNav (NN) shares rose about 26% on Monday, October 26, after the Federal Communications Commission published a request from SpaceX (SPCX) involving airwaves NextNav wants to use for its proposed network. SpaceX asked the FCC to include the 902-928 MHz band in an upcoming proposal to expand satellite connections to ordinary phones.
NextNav traded at $12.68 as of 1:10 p.m. ET, up from Friday's $10.08 close. The shares began climbing just before noon.
I pulled the filing from the FCC's docket to see exactly what SpaceX wanted. The three-page letter, dated October 23, summarizes its meetings with agency officials. It asks for a regulatory step; it doesn't disclose a deal with NextNav. The FCC made it public Monday morning.
What did SpaceX ask for?
The first request on the list is short: "Include the 902-928 MHz band in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Supplemental Coverage from Space." Supplemental Coverage from Space, or SCS, is the FCC's framework for letting satellite companies use spectrum licensed for land-based cell networks to reach ordinary phones.
The FCC votes on October 29 on a draft proposal that would expand SCS from five bands to 13 and make another 482 megahertz available. Its list of proposed bands doesn't include 902-928 MHz. SpaceX wants the FCC to add "the nationwide 5G flexible-use license proposed for 902-928 MHz in the pending NextNav petition" to that list.
SpaceX's reason is timing. "Doing so now saves time later: if the Commission grants the NextNav petition, authorizing direct-to-device service in the band requires no further rulemaking," the letter says.
SpaceX representatives made the case in meetings on October 21 and 22 with staff from the FCC's wireless and space bureaus, and with advisors to Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioners Olivia Trusty and Anna Gomez. We covered the October 29 agenda when Carr announced it.
What is NextNav's petition?
NextNav filed its petition on April 16, 2024. It asks the FCC to reconfigure the Lower 900 MHz band for a land-based positioning network that NextNav says would complement and back up GPS. SpaceX's letter describes the proposal as a nationwide 5G flexible-use license. The FCC hasn't ruled on the petition.
Groups that use the band today have pushed back. In a September 22 letter, the Security Industry Association argued that NextNav's tests can't show its plan won't cause harmful interference to "the billions of unlicensed devices that utilize that band."
What the letter doesn't say
The letter is a request, not an approval. It doesn't describe any agreement between SpaceX and NextNav, and the FCC can leave the band out of the proposal it considers on October 29. NextNav hadn't put out a press release or an SEC filing as of Monday afternoon.
SpaceX's letter makes three other requests about the October 29 items. One asks that the FCC's draft order allowing drones in part of the 800 MHz band cite SpaceX's proposed deal with Grain Management for neighboring spectrum.
