The Federal Communications Commission is getting ready to finish a drone spectrum rulemaking that has sat open since January 2025. On Oct. 28, Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the commission will vote at its Nov. 19 open meeting on two orders. The first is an omnibus order covering three separate bands used by crewed and uncrewed aircraft. The second opens a satellite band to terminals on moving platforms, drones among them. The FCC said the draft texts would be posted on Oct. 29 at fcc.gov/November2026.

The FCC's news release frames the package as being about "American drone dominance" and "airspace sovereignty." The details are narrower and more technical than that. Much of the package traces to petitions that several companies filed between 2018 and 2022. In two of the bands, the FCC's 2025 proposal named a single company as the only licensee.

Carr described the goal as an effort to "replace outdated rules with a more flexible nationwide licensing system, expand our drone-detection capabilities and improve the in-flight connectivity experience."

Where This Came From

The proceeding is WT Docket 24-629, titled Facilitating Opportunities for Advanced Air Mobility. The commission adopted the notice of proposed rulemaking (FCC 25-7) on Jan. 13, 2025, under then-Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, and released it on Jan. 17. It appeared in the Federal Register on March 17, 2025. DroneXL notes that Carr voted for the proposal at the time, so the final order continues a bipartisan effort rather than reversing it.

The NPRM proposed changes in three bands. Each one has a different user and a different problem to solve.

450 MHz: One Nationwide License for Control Links

The 450 MHz item covers 650 kHz of spectrum at 454 and 459 MHz. These frequencies would be dedicated to safety-related data links for crewed and uncrewed aircraft: command-and-control traffic, as opposed to video or payload data. Under the current rules the band is licensed site by site. The order would replace that with what the FCC calls flexible nationwide licensing.

Ownership of the band is simple. The NPRM identifies AURA Network Systems as the only incumbent licensee, with 53 sites. Under that proposal, as DroneXL describes it, AURA's existing licenses would convert into a single nationwide control-link license with no auction, and the conversion would be voluntary.

The NPRM paired that license with build-out requirements. The licensee would have to provide service at 400 feet over 17.5 percent of each regional license area within four years, and over 35 percent within eight. If it drops high-altitude service, those benchmarks double to 35 and 70 percent. Missing the first benchmark would shorten the license term from 15 years to 13. I could not review the Nov. 19 draft text, so whether these figures survive into the final order is unconfirmed.

For drone operators, the result would be a protected, licensed band for control links with defined national coverage obligations, which unlicensed spectrum cannot provide. For the industry, it confirms that one company will hold the franchise.

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24 GHz: Radar That Can See Drones, Not Stop Them

The order would let ground-based radars use 24.45-24.65 GHz to detect and track unauthorized or dangerous drones. The FCC lists airports, borders, prisons, stadiums and critical infrastructure as example sites. Radar systems must avoid interfering with users that have priority in the band, and the 2025 proposal made the operations secondary.

This item has the longest history. Echodyne petitioned on Oct. 24, 2018, for permanent radiolocation operations in the band on a secondary basis. While the rulemaking stayed open, the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau gave Echodyne a site-by-site waiver in June 2019. In June 2024 the bureau extended that waiver for five years, and on the same day it acted on a waiver for MatrixSpace. Black Sage Technologies and In-Q-Tel both filed comments supporting Echodyne's petition, and no one else commented. Turning the waiver arrangement into a standing rule would let radar vendors deploy without asking for case-by-case relief.

The limits are important. As DroneXL points out, radiolocation authority covers detection only. Nothing in the order gives anyone authority to jam drones. DroneXL says that authority comes from federal law instead. A prison or stadium could use a 24 GHz radar to find a drone, but the order would not let it bring one down.

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800 MHz Air-Ground: Average Power Instead of Peak

The third band is mainly about in-flight broadband. The 800 MHz air-ground spectrum is two 2 MHz slices, 849-851 and 894-896 MHz, for a total of 4 MHz. DroneXL reports that Gogo has been the only holder since 2013. The 2025 proposal would measure transmit power as an average instead of a peak, with a 13 dB cap on power spikes, which Gogo asked for in a July 2022 petition. The FCC says the final rules retain protections for public-safety communications.

Readers should not confuse this with a different 800 MHz action. According to the FCC release, the commission's Oct. 29 meeting is set to vote on opening the 800 MHz Cellular band to UAS operations. That is a separate item, and the Nov. 19 air-ground change does not depend on it.

28 GHz: Satellite Terminals on Moving Drones

The second order on the Nov. 19 agenda covers non-geostationary (NGSO) Earth Stations in Motion. It would allow terminals on moving vehicles to communicate with low-Earth-orbit satellite systems across the entire 28.35-28.6 GHz band. The FCC lists ships, planes, drones, blimps and cars. For drone builders, this could make satellite links possible for beyond-line-of-sight operations in places where terrestrial networks don't reach. Whether that works in practice will depend on terminal size, weight and power, and the order does not address those.

Why It Matters

For years, drone-detection radar in the 24 GHz band has run on waivers. The Nov. 19 package would put that arrangement and several others into permanent rules at once. Counter-drone radar vendors would get a durable legal footing that until now existed only as individual waivers, and drone operators would get a licensed band for control links, with the coverage benchmarks and penalty the NPRM proposed.

The package also shows how this spectrum is concentrated. The 450 MHz band has one incumbent that would become the nationwide licensee without an auction under the proposal, and the 800 MHz air-ground band has had a single holder since 2013. Critics could argue that this gives early holders control of spectrum the drone economy will need. The proposed build-out requirements are the main enforcement lever: 17.5 percent at four years, 35 percent at eight, and a shorter term for missing the first benchmark.

The 24 GHz item also does not address who may stop a drone. The rules would improve detection, but a rule that lets a radar see a drone gives no one the power to jam it or bring it down.

The commission votes on Nov. 19. The draft texts may still change before then.

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