EU to reserve two-thirds of mobile-satellite spectrum for European firms

The European Commission is poised to announce a sweeping industrial policy move on Wednesday, reserving two-thirds of the bloc’s future mobile-satellite-services spectrum for European operators. This would leave Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and other non-EU companies able to bid only for the remaining third of the 2 GHz band, according to a Reuters report citing sources familiar with the plan.

The decision, expected to be confirmed at a meeting of commissioners in Brussels, concerns the post-2027 allocation of the 2 GHz mobile-satellite-services (MSS) band. This 30 MHz frequency pair,spanning 1980-2010 MHz and 2170-2200 MHz,enables mobile devices and vehicles to maintain connectivity where terrestrial networks are unavailable. Current licenses, awarded in 2009 to Inmarsat (now Viasat) and Solaris (now EchoStar), expire in May 2027. Because EU member states control the band on a harmonised basis through the Commission, a single bloc-wide reservation is feasible.

The two-thirds split represents the most aggressive industrial policy the Commission has deployed in space to date. The reserved tranche will be open to companies registered in the EU, with the United Kingdom and Norway also eligible to bid. In practice, the European share is expected to go to operators behind IRIS2, the 290-satellite multi-orbit constellation being built by the SpaceRISE consortium,comprising SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat,with Airbus, Thales Alenia Space, and OHB among the named contractors. The 12-year IRIS2 concession, signed in December 2024 at an estimated cost of €10.5 billion (with roughly €6.5 billion from public funds), is slated to begin governmental services in 2030.

This decision comes amid a broader European push for strategic autonomy in space, driven by two reinforcing concerns. First is dependence on Starlink, exacerbated by Elon Musk’s public threats to withdraw service in Ukraine and his political alignment with Donald Trump’s second administration. Second is a wider pattern of European frontier-tech policy in 2026, where Brussels has progressively restricted US-firm access to strategically classified categories,from cybersecurity AI tools to cloud sovereignty and chip manufacturing equipment. The 2 GHz reservation is the clearest signal yet that satellite communications is on that list.

Starlink and Kuiper are not completely locked out under the proposed terms. The remaining one-third of the band would be open to non-EU bidders through a standard competitive selection. Starlink’s direct-to-cell service, already commercially live in the US, would benefit from European MSS spectrum to operate at scale on the continent. Kuiper, still at the constellation-deployment stage, has been positioning for direct-to-device as a revenue line later this decade.

Incumbent licensees Viasat and EchoStar face an awkward position. Both are US-listed and would fall into the non-EU third under the proposed terms, despite holding the spectrum today. Viasat has spent the past 18 months lobbying for an extension of its existing S-band spectrum, used predominantly to operate the European Aviation Network jointly with Deutsche Telekom. Whether incumbents can secure European-tranche access through joint ventures or corporate-structure adjustments is a question Wednesday’s announcement is unlikely to fully resolve.

The 2 GHz band is too narrow to support a Starlink-scale service on its own. What it provides is the harmonised, interference-protected, regulated layer that mobile carriers want for their direct-to-device traffic. Reserving two-thirds of that layer for European firms compresses the addressable European market for Starlink and Kuiper to a one-third slice. The deeper effect is structural rather than total: Brussels is choosing to make European direct-to-device services preferentially viable, not to make American ones impossible.

The Commission is expected to publish the formal proposal on Wednesday afternoon, Brussels time.