The single most consequential constraint on how fast a low-Earth-orbit broadband network can serve an American household was written before those networks existed. On May 13, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission published a final rule retiring that constraint: the Equivalent Power Flux Density limits, a 1990s-era ceiling on how much signal a non-geostationary (NGSO) system may radiate to avoid interfering with geostationary (GSO) satellites. In their place, the Commission adopts performance-based protection criteria and a coordination regime that pushes the hard work of interference management out of the rulebook and onto the operators themselves.

The mechanism the FCC is dismantling is worth stating precisely, because the entire business case for the change rests on it. EPFD limits force NGSO operators to throttle their own transmissions to a worst-case interference envelope calculated decades ago. The Commission's own framing is that this produces systematic over-protection of GSO systems — NGSO operators leave capacity on the table not because it would actually harm a neighbor, but because a static, conservative formula says they must. The cost of that conservatism, the FCC argues, lands on the end user, and most acutely on the rural and remote subscribers who have the fewest terrestrial alternatives.

"The consequence today of applying such EPFD limits in the United States is that operators must overprotect GSO systems, which in turn means that American households and businesses-- most critically in rural and remote areas--do not receive the fastest space-based NGSO satellite broadband American innovation has available."— Federal Register / FCC, source

The replacement framework has three structural pieces, and reading them in order reveals the FCC's theory of the market. First, the static EPFD ceiling gives way to "modern, performance-based GSO protection criteria" grounded in the technical record of the proceeding — protection defined by what actually degrades a GSO link rather than by a legacy formula. Second, the Commission extends a framework for good-faith coordination, letting NGSO and GSO operators "bargain for appropriate interference protections through voluntary, private agreement." Third, where the operators fail to reach a deal, the FCC retains "technical backstops to protect GSO systems when coordination has not been reached." The regulator is, in effect, stepping back to referee rather than to dictate.

Why a coordination regime favors scale

The shift from a fixed rule to a negotiation has a structural consequence that does not appear in the abstract but follows directly from it: it advantages operators with the engineering depth and counterparty leverage to coordinate effectively. Under a single numeric limit, every NGSO operator faced the same ceiling regardless of size. Under good-faith coordination, the operator that can model interference precisely, staff a coordination team, and credibly offer or withhold concessions sits in a stronger position. The backstop protects GSO incumbents from being steamrolled, but the day-to-day reality of "voluntary, private agreement" tends to reward incumbency and balance-sheet weight on both sides of the table.

For the GSO operators, the read is mixed. They lose the certainty of a hard EPFD shield — the formula that guaranteed protection without negotiation. They gain a seat at a bargaining table and a regulatory backstop, but they now have to actively defend their links rather than rely on a default. For the largest NGSO constellations, the upside is straightforward: relief from a self-imposed throttle translates into higher deliverable throughput per satellite over U.S. territory, which is the metric that ultimately underwrites broadband subscription revenue and the unit economics of the whole network.

It is worth naming the term precisely, because it anchors the entire business case. Equivalent Power Flux Density is a measure of how much aggregate interference power an NGSO constellation radiates into a GSO receiver, summed across every satellite in view; the legacy limits cap that aggregate at levels fixed in the late 1990s, when a “constellation” meant dozens of satellites rather than thousands. As constellation sizes exploded, the static EPFD ceiling forced each individual satellite to transmit ever more conservatively to keep the aggregate under the old cap — a throttle that tightens precisely as a network scales. By replacing the aggregate cap with case-by-case performance criteria and coordination, the FCC removes the penalty that previously grew with constellation size, which is why the change matters most to the operators flying the largest fleets. The reform does not merely loosen a limit; it severs the link between constellation growth and self-imposed signal suppression.

The deferred provisions are a tell

The effective-date structure rewards close reading. Most of the rule takes effect July 13, 2026 — 60 days after publication, the standard cadence. But the FCC indefinitely delayed the amendments to two specific sections, 25.146(a)(3) and 25.289(a)(2), promising a later Federal Register notice to set their effective date. Deferred sub-provisions in an otherwise-effective rule usually signal unresolved technical or interagency detail, or coordination with the international framework. The document references ITU Radio Regulations Article 22, the home of the original EPFD limits, which underscores that the United States is moving ahead of — or at least independently from — the international rule it inherited. That divergence is itself a strategic posture: it positions U.S.-licensed NGSO capacity to outrun what the global EPFD regime would otherwise permit.

What to watch

This final rule did not end the proceeding; it opened the next phase of it. The Commission's Space Bureau has already issued a companion proposed rule seeking comment on the set of GSO "reference links" that the performance-based criteria depend on — the assumed typical GSO operating parameters against which NGSO interference is judged. Those reference links are the dial that determines how much head-room the new framework actually unlocks; set them conservatively and the practical gain shrinks toward the old EPFD result, set them realistically and NGSO operators capture the throughput the FCC says they have been leaving on the table. The other thing to watch is the coordination market itself: whether NGSO and GSO operators converge on durable private agreements, or whether disputes route back to the FCC's backstop and turn the "voluntary" regime into a de facto regulatory docket. Either outcome will be visible in the filings, and either will reshape how much the spectrum under U.S. skies is actually worth.