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SATShow 2027 has a session called “Countdown to WRC-27.” Here is what it is counting down to

The ITU's World Radiocommunication Conference meets in Shanghai in October 2027 to rewrite parts of the treaty that governs spectrum and satellite orbits. Most of its agenda is about space. SATShow Week 2027 gives the subject a 45-minute government session in March, a month before the last big global preparatory meeting. Here is what the conference decides, which agenda items touch satellites, and where the US and African positions stand as of Nov 9, 2026.

By Kwesi Addo · 9 Nov 2026 · 7 min

The 70-meter Deep Space Station 14 antenna at NASA's Deep Space Network complex in Goldstone, California, against a clear blue sky
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Governments are about to rewrite part of the radio rulebook, and SATShow Week 2027 has noticed. On Tuesday, March 9, from 2:30 to 3:15 pm, a session called “Countdown to WRC-27” will cover, in the organiser’s words, how “the decisions ahead will shape how space systems access spectrum for years to come.” The program promises “government and industry leaders” but names none, so neither do we. As listed on Nov. 9, it comes with the Government and Military Access passes.

This is piece six in our SATShow Week 2027 series, after the week itself, GovMilSpace, Sovereign Networks and Africa, command-path security and orbital compute. This one covers the treaty underneath them.

The instrument

The World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) is run by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN telecoms agency. The ITU says WRCs meet every three to four years to review and, if necessary, revise the Radio Regulations, “the international treaty governing the use of the radio-frequency spectrum” and of satellite orbits. NTIA, which coordinates US federal spectrum use, adds that it “operates by consensus, with occasional voting.” WRC-27 runs from 18 October to 12 November 2027 in Shanghai.

Three terms do most of the work:

  • Agenda item. A question the conference must settle. The ITU Council sets the agenda from the previous conference’s recommendations, and each item points to a resolution ordering technical studies.
  • Allocation. An entry in the treaty’s Table of Frequency Allocations giving a band to a radio service, such as mobile-satellite.
  • Primary or secondary. A primary service gets protection. A secondary one must not cause harmful interference to primary services and can’t claim protection from them.

Most of the agenda is about space

NTIA Assistant Secretary Arielle Roth said on Nov. 3 that satellite issues “account for approximately 80 percent of the conference agenda.” That is NTIA’s count. Space items on the ITU’s list include:

  • 1.1: earth stations in motion on aircraft and ships using 47.2-50.2 and 50.4-51.4 GHz.
  • 1.5: measures to limit unauthorised operation of non-geostationary satellite terminals.
  • 1.6: “equitable access” to four fixed-satellite bands between 37.5 and 51.4 GHz.
  • 1.11 and 1.12: mobile-satellite space-to-space links, and low-data-rate non-geostationary systems.
  • 1.13: new mobile-satellite allocations so satellites can reach ordinary phones directly (direct-to-device) in IMT, or cellular, bands between 694/698 MHz and 2.7 GHz.
  • 1.14: possible additional mobile-satellite allocations.
  • 1.15: communications on the lunar surface and between lunar orbit and the surface.
  • 1.16 to 1.19: protecting radio astronomy, space weather sensors and passive Earth observation.

Item 1.7, more mobile spectrum including 7.125-8.4 GHz, isn’t a satellite item. But a draft US proposal in the February FCC notice (DA 26-182) notes that the 7.125-8.4 GHz range is already allocated on a primary basis to services including fixed-satellite, space research and Earth exploration-satellite, and that those incumbent operations must be protected.

The calendar before March

The conference lasts four weeks. The preparation has lasted four years, which is about the ratio you’d expect for a treaty.

  • Nov. 11 and 12, 2026: the ITU’s Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM) management team compiles the draft CPM Report, the conference’s technical basis.
  • Nov. 30 to Dec. 4, 2026: CITEL, the Americas’ regional body, meets in Bogota. Roth said the US “is on track to enter this CITEL meeting with a U.S. position on all 19 top-tier Agenda Items.”
  • March 9, 2027: SATShow‘s session.
  • April 5 to 15, 2027: the second CPM session in Geneva.

So the March session lands while positions can still move.

Where the US stands: not settled on direct-to-device

A Sept. 29 FCC public notice says its WRC-27 Advisory Committee could not reach consensus on item 1.13 and passed on three views: View A from AT&T, CTIA, GSMA, T-Mobile and Verizon, View B from AST SpaceMobile, and View C from Apple. The same notice says none of its attachments “constitute any final U.S. Government positions.”

A draft US government proposal on 1.13 in the same filing’s Attachment B says: “In principle, the U.S. is supportive of appropriate International Telecommunication Union (ITU) secondary allocations for DC-MSS-IMT in sub-bands where U.S. equities can be protected.” It names aviation bands to avoid or protect, such as 960-1 215 MHz. It also says other candidate bands present “an unacceptable interference risk to critical national security systems.” Hence, perhaps, the government pass.

An October NTIA presentation listed 11 items on which the US had already sent proposals to CITEL. Item 1.13 wasn’t among them.

Where Africa stands: a framework, not numbers

The African Telecommunications Union (ATU) held its third preparatory meeting for WRC-27 in Tunis, 7 to 11 September. The ATU’s own release confirms the meeting and quotes Secretary General John Omo saying positions “have to withstand technical scrutiny.” It does not describe an outcome on 1.13. Telecom Gazette reported that the meeting agreed a 1.13 framework still labelled “proposed”: direct-to-device stays secondary to terrestrial networks, national regulators keep licensing authority, and power limits wait until after the April Geneva meeting. CTN has not seen the ATU text.

African regulators are preparing early: Roth said an NTIA and USTTI satellite training in Accra in May drew 27 regulators from 20 African countries. The engineering is unresolved, though. Telecom Gazette also reported a working paper finding it “will not be possible for neighbouring African countries to deploy DC-MSS-IMT harmoniously” alongside South Africa’s 2.6 GHz network. That is a serious caveat for a rural fix.

The second hook

Monday’s “Mission Partner or Investor?” session (March 8, 9:00 am, Sherin Kamal of JTNC, as listed), which Piece 2 covered, casts government as “part investor, part regulator.” Tuesday’s session is about the regulator part.

What to listen for on March 9

  • Which 1.13 option speakers back. Uganda’s regulator lists no change, secondary, or primary with strict conditions.
  • Whether anyone names the bands the US will ask to exclude for aviation and national security.
  • Whether CITEL’s Bogota meeting produced an inter-American proposal on 1.13.
  • Whether equitable access (1.6) comes up. Roth said “some countries are concerned” new entrants will find no room left, and called that a “misconception.” Those countries vote in Shanghai.

Method note

CTN read the satshow.com program page on Nov. 9, 2026. Session titles, times, abstracts, pass inclusions and the speaker listing come from that page. The program gives no time zone. The show is in Washington, DC, so we read times as Eastern. No independent source lists these sessions, and listings can change before March. The agenda item numbers and wording come from the ITU’s WRC-27 studies page and were checked against the Malaysian regulator MCMC’s agenda list. The Africa framework details and the working-paper quote come from one trade outlet, Telecom Gazette (James Calloway, published Oct. 13, 2026). Its URL returned 404 on the Standards pass of Nov 9, 2026, but CTN re-fetched it live with a direct request at 9:08 AM ET the same day, and the page loaded and contains both claims. CTN found no independent second report of the Tunis outcome on 1.13, and CTN hasn’t seen the ATU text itself. CITEL’s Bogota dates (Nov. 30 to Dec. 4, 2026) come from CITEL/OAS PCC.II scheduling, not from Roth’s speech. CTN didn’t ask the organiser, the agencies or the companies named for comment. The definitions of “allocation,” “primary” and “secondary” are CTN’s plain-language glosses.

Sources

All pages read Nov. 9, 2026.

Disclosure: Lone Cowry, the publisher of Cowry Tech News, will attend SATShow Week 2027. It has no sponsorship or partnership with the event.