Dec. 7, 2021

The Satellite Safety Alliance congratulates Jessica Rosenworcel on her historic confirmation to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Senate’s swift and bipartisan action ensures that the FCC has the leadership it needs to address the many pressing challenges ahead of it, including providing a stable satellite environment free from harmful interference at this critical moment.

We look forward to working with Chairwoman Rosenworcel to correct the deep flaws in the original Ligado order, pushed by the prior Administration with little regard for its impacts on global mission-critical satellite applications.

Ligado’s plan threatens to interfere with services provided by the SATCOM, aviation and real-time environmental satellite data communities. These vital services are too essential to jeopardize by a company with a history of instability. Moreover, the prior FCC didn’t fully consider the data and opposition in its 2020 order, as highlighted by the opposition from 14 federal agencies and the historic opposition from the NTIA.

Under Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s leadership, the FCC must reconsider the Ligado order and work with other federal agencies to mitigate the significant risk of interference to satellite communications.