SpaceX urges Starlink users to petition FCC and US senators amid its squabble with Dish Network over radio frequencies

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SpaceX urges Starlink users to petition FCC and US senators amid its squabble with Dish Network over radio frequencies
Elon Musk and a Starlink terminal.JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images/Taras Podolian/Gazeta.ua/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
  • SpaceX has urged Starlink users to contact the FCC and senators amid a row with Dish, per The Verge.
  • The two companies have been fighting over a range of radio frequencies called 12 GHz.
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SpaceX has reportedly emailed some Starlink customers to ask for their support in its ongoing dispute with satellite TV provider, Dish Network, over the use of radio frequencies.

The Verge reported the news.

Elon Musk's satellite broadband company has urged customers to contact the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as well as US senators and representatives to petition on behalf of Starlink.

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Dish and SpaceX have been squabbling over a range of radio frequencies called 12 GHz, which SpaceX uses to operate Starlink.

Dish, along with a company called R.S Access, has been campaigning for a rule change to allow the band of frequencies to be used for 5G after the FCC raised the possibility of this in January last year.

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SpaceX claims that sharing the band of radio frequencies with 5G providers will disrupt Starlink services. If the rule changes proposed by Dish are not rejected by the FCC, SpaceX said customers would experience harmful inferences more than 77% of the time and outages 74% of the time.

SpaceX and the Dish Network did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.

The company also commissioned a report this month that claims to support its fear about Starlink service disruption.

The email sent to customers, which was posted on social media by a CNBC reporter, said that the changes proposed by Dish threaten "to make Starlink unusable for you and the vast majority of our American customers."

SpaceX also accuses Dish of employing "paid lobbyists who are attempting to mislead the FCC with faulty analysis in hopes of obscuring the truth" in the email.

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The email includes a link to a Starlink action page titled: "Don't Let DISH Disable Your Internet," which has two pre-written petition messages that can be sent to the FCC and US senators.

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