In case there was still any doubt about who pays for tariffs, I submit to you the following bill I received this morning.
StormCh🅰️serTodd
@stormchasertodd.bsky.social
510 followers 571 following 196 posts
Extreme weather videographer / sUAS pilot, Science, space, travel, Aurora, volcanoes, Investor in AST Spacemobile. Retired Cybersecurity Engineer. You've seen my storm video on all major networks. #JUSTICE #RESIST
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agency by the statute.”35 The Communications Act tasks the Commission with making “such
regulations not inconsistent with law as it may deem necessary to prevent interference between
stations[.]”36 The Commission’s SCS Order did that for SCS by adopting the aggregate out-of-
band interference limit in Section 25.202(k)(1) that was “necessary” to protect adjacent-band
wireless networks from harmful interference.37
Despite the Commission’s prior finding that out-of-band interference concerns warrant a
rule limiting aggregate emissions, the Bureau waived Section 25.202(k)(1) as requested by
SpaceX.38 In doing so, the Bureau failed to determine that the harmful interference concerns
described in the SCS Order that led to the adoption of Section 25.202(k)(1) had been eliminated.
Instead, all the Bureau said was that “SpaceX has provided engineering analyses in support of its
claim that harmful interference in adjacent bands is unlikely” and that “T-Mobile, an adjacent
band terrestrial operator . . . presents its own technical analyses in which it concludes that the
waiver poses a low likelihood of harmful interference.”39 That is as far as it went. The Bureau
never endorsed the conclusions of either analysis, nor did it reject the technical claims of AT&T,
Verizon, and EchoStar raised in the records for both the SCS Order and the Waiver Order.
AT&T demonstrated that it would suffer a devastating 18% reduction in throughput.40 But the
Waiver Order allowed SpaceX to operate at higher power levels regardless. This failure to rule](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gfjuigyoevbroyfy6s5unuq2/bafkreihw57jvwgnk4kyxs3nazg6b373ghlrg4ek3bwatdn4ov3dvew7nre)
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out harmful interference conflicts with the SCS Order’s technical reasons for adopting Section
25.202(k)(1).
The Bureau tried to cover this hole in its decisionmaking by conditioning SpaceX’s
authorization on a requirement to not cause harmful interference and to address any complaints
of harmful interference from adjacent band users.41 But this condition contravenes the
Communications Act’s mandate to make rules that “prevent interference between stations[.]”42
As the Supreme Court has held, the word “prevent” means “to render (an intended, possible, or
likely action or event) impractical or impossible by anticipatory action.”43 In other words,
“prevent” means to stop something before it happens. Accordingly, the Commission’s statutory
responsibility is to make rules that stop harmful interference at its inception, just like Section
25.202(k)(1) is supposed to do. But unlike an aggregate power limit, the condition in the Waiver
Order allows SpaceX and T-Mobile to interfere with adjacent band users like EchoStar up until
EchoStar detects and reports the interference. Because this non-anticipatory measure only kicks
in after EchoStar suffers from harmful interference, it does not satisfy the prevention required by
the plain text of the Communications Act.
In any event, the Bureau knows that it is immensely difficult for carriers to detect a
particular source of interference. In reality, the condition forces EchoStar to take up this burden
just to keep its basic rights as a licensee. Yet Congress placed the burden to prevent harmful
interference on the Commission and those causing it, not the victim operators.44](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gfjuigyoevbroyfy6s5unuq2/bafkreiamac7js6rb6rfwr56wtkx7cd5hdbu7b2btey6txy3i673uzcybre)
