Technical Compatibility Challenges Between Fixed Satellite Service and 5G in C-band

C-band Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) satellites have been providing services to businesses, governments and consumers for over 50 years and continue to be a critical enabler of socio-economic development around the world. Since their inception, governments, commercial enterprises, and users of all kinds not to mention satellite operators have invested billions of dollars in C-band satellites and ground infrastructure, and today there are about 200 geostationary satellites in orbit using C-band frequencies. With its propagation characteristics, and its resilience to rain fade, C-band spectrum is unique in its ability to provide robust multi-continental coverage.

This paper focuses on the technical challenges that arise when introducing 5G (or mobile service in general) to the downlink C-band spectrum in any part of the 3400-4200 MHz frequency range. This band is allocated on a global basis to the FSS and the Fixed Service (FS) on a primary basis. The band is also currently allocated to the Mobile Service (MS) on either a primary or secondary basis depending on the country.