On this page · 13 sections
- WRC-27 at a glance
- The agenda items that decide satellite-to-phone service
- Likely outcomes, and what each means
- India: what TRAI and DoT have said
- US, UK and EU notes
- What 3GPP standards add, and what they do not
- What app and enterprise teams should expect
- Questions to ask operators and satellite providers
- Worked example: a field-service app on a satellite link
- Decision table: what to do now
- Checklist before, during and after WRC-27
- How eCorpIT can help
- References
Summary. The ITU lists the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027 (WRC-27) for 18 October to 12 November 2027 in Shanghai, after the Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-27) on 11 to 15 October. For satellite direct-to-device (D2D) service, agenda item 1.13 is the one to watch. Under Resolution 253 (WRC-23), it studies new mobile-satellite service (MSS) allocations so satellites can reach ordinary IMT phones in bands between 694/698 MHz and 2.7 GHz, without causing harmful interference to mobile networks or claiming protection from them. ITU Working Party 4C produced draft conference text for item 1.13 at its 7 to 16 October 2026 meeting, and the second Conference Preparatory Meeting runs from 5 to 15 April 2027. The outgoing head of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Mario Maniewicz, said in September 2026 that he expects a D2D framework in at least some IMT bands, as reported by SatNews. India moved first: on 5 November 2026, TRAI recommended allowing D2D over L-band and S-band MSS spectrum, and over IMT spectrum in six FDD bands from 600 MHz to 2100 MHz on a non-interference, non-protection basis, without waiting for WRC-27. DoT had not announced a decision by 11 November 2026. Our verdict: expect messaging, alerts and low-rate data over satellite in 2027 to 2029, not broadband, and design apps for thin, slow links now.
About this article. This is for product, engineering and connectivity leads who build mobile or field apps or buy connectivity for remote teams. We checked conference dates, agenda text and resolutions against ITU pages and documents, India's position against TRAI's press release and the PIB release, and national rules against FCC and Ofcom documents, on 11 November 2026. Statements by officials are attributed to the outlets that reported them. This is general information, not legal or spectrum advice, and no operator or satellite company paid for inclusion. Researched with AI assistance and reviewed by our editorial team.
WRC-27 at a glance
World Radiocommunication Conferences revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing spectrum and satellite orbits, every three to four years. WRC-27's agenda is set out in Resolution 813 (WRC-23).
The dates below come from ITU's WRC-27, CPM, Working Party 4C and PP-26 pages, with the Radiocommunication Bureau handover as reported by SatNews.
| Milestone | Date | Status on 11 November 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| ITU Working Party 4C, 36th meeting, with draft CPM text for item 1.13 | 7 to 16 October 2026, Geneva | Held; report is Document 4C/943 |
| ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-26) | 9 to 27 November 2026, Doha | Under way; elections start 12 November |
| Radiocommunication Bureau director: Maniewicz's term ends | 31 December 2026 | Successor elected at PP-26 |
| New Radiocommunication Bureau director takes office | 1 January 2027 | Candidates from France and Germany |
| Second Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM27-2) | 5 to 15 April 2027, Geneva | Confirmed by ITU |
| Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-27) | 11 to 15 October 2027, Shanghai | Confirmed by ITU |
| WRC-27 | 18 October to 12 November 2027, Shanghai | Confirmed by ITU |
The CPM report is the document national delegations work from. It sets out the possible solutions, or methods, for each agenda item, so April 2027 is when the methods for item 1.13 are agreed in one report.
The director race has narrowed. ITU's PP-26 candidates page lists two candidates for Radiocommunication Bureau director, Eric Fournier of France and Alexander Kühn of Germany. India had nominated Revathi Mannepalli, but Communications Today reported on 31 October 2026 that India withdrew her candidature.
Maniewicz estimated that about 85% of the WRC-27 agenda concerns satellite or space services, up from under half a decade ago.
The agenda items that decide satellite-to-phone service
Agenda items, resolutions and bands below are from ITU's preparatory studies page and Resolutions 253 and 254.
| Agenda item | Resolution | What it studies | Why app and enterprise teams care |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.13 | 253 (WRC-23) | New MSS allocations for direct connectivity to IMT user equipment, 694/698 MHz to 2.7 GHz | Whether ordinary phones can reach satellites in mobile bands with treaty protection |
| 1.14 | 254 (WRC-23) | New MSS allocations in 2010-2025 MHz and 2160-2170 MHz (Regions 1 and 3) and 2120-2160 MHz (all Regions) | More dedicated satellite spectrum near the 2 GHz mobile bands, including in India's region |
| 1.12 | 252 (WRC-23) | MSS allocations for low-data-rate non-geostationary systems in 1427-1432, 1645.5-1646.5, 1880-1920 and 2010-2025 MHz | IoT and asset-tracking satellites |
| 1.11 | 249 (Rev.WRC-23) | Space-to-space links between satellites in existing MSS bands within 1518-2500 MHz | Relay links between satellites |
| 1.10 | 775 (Rev.WRC-23) | Power limits for satellite services at 71-76 and 81-86 GHz | Future satellite broadband capacity |
| 1.7 | 256 (WRC-23) | IMT in 4400-4800 MHz, 7125-8400 MHz and 14.8-15.35 GHz | Terrestrial 6G spectrum, not D2D |
| 7, Topic E | Standing item | Regulatory improvements to how No. 4.4 applies to space services | Today's D2D services run under No. 4.4 |
Item 1.7 is about terrestrial capacity rather than satellites; our Release 21 6G planning guide covers it.
Agenda item 1.13 in detail
Resolution 253 frames D2D as a coverage and resilience tool. It notes that MSS can offer resilience and connectivity to underserved, rural and remote areas, especially when terrestrial networks fail or disasters strike. It also records that MSS use in IMT bands in a given area depends on authorisation by the administration with jurisdiction there. In plain terms, even a global allocation leaves each country to authorise the service.
The studies cover:
- possible MSS allocations between 694/698 MHz and 2.7 GHz, based on the IMT frequency arrangements in Recommendation ITU-R M.1036;
- spectrum requirements and technical, operational and regulatory matters for D2D;
- sharing and compatibility with incumbent services, including in adjacent bands;
- measures so MSS stations neither cause harmful interference to mobile stations nor claim protection from them.
The fourth point matters most. Satellite D2D in mobile bands is being designed as a secondary layer under terrestrial networks. The resolution also cites ITU-R Report M.2077, which found a spectrum shortfall for the satellite component of IMT of more than 144 MHz downlink and more than 19 MHz uplink.
How hard is the work? Audrey Allison of The Aerospace Corporation, a former FCC international bureau regulator, told an RCR Wireless panel in October 2026 that item 1.13 spans about 13 frequency arrangements, that sharing studies must protect every incumbent across FDD and TDD layouts, and that the work has been very difficult.
Two routes to the same phone
Maniewicz separated two approaches. D2D in existing MSS bands is already possible and already happening, and WRC-27 will look at more spectrum for it, which is the subject of items 1.12 and 1.14. The harder route reuses IMT bands that terrestrial operators hold, which is item 1.13. Phones already support IMT bands, so that route can reach existing handsets, but it carries the interference risk.
What happens without a WRC-27 decision
Today's D2D services in IMT bands operate under No. 4.4 of the Radio Regulations. Allison explained to RCR that such systems are notified as operations not in conformity with the treaty: they get no protection from harmful interference, and if they cause it, the notifying administration must shut them down. That is workable for trials and national services, and weak ground for long-term investment. A successful item 1.13 would replace that footing with allocations and conditions in at least some bands. A failed or narrow outcome would leave many markets on No. 4.4 or national rules.
Likely outcomes, and what each means
WRC outcomes are negotiated, so no one can forecast them with confidence. These are the realistic shapes, based on Resolution 253's structure and the statements above. This is our assessment.
| Outcome | What it would mean | Signal to watch before October 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| MSS allocation in some IMT bands, with power and protection limits | Treaty basis for D2D in those bands; national licensing still required | CPM27-2 methods favouring band-by-band allocations |
| Allocation in many bands with strict limits | Wider handset reach; lower satellite power, so thinner service | Regional groups converging on common methods |
| No change to allocations | D2D continues under No. 4.4 and national rules, unprotected | Strong objections from terrestrial or broadcasting interests in regional preparation |
| More dedicated MSS spectrum (items 1.12 and 1.14) | Growth on the MSS route, which needs handsets supporting those bands | Region 3 views on the 2 GHz bands |
For planning, assume the first row and design for the third. Treaty changes also take time to reach products: national regulators must amend their frequency plans and licences after the conference.
India: what TRAI and DoT have said
We found no formal Indian position on WRC-27 agenda item 1.13. What India has published is more useful for planning: a domestic D2D framework that does not wait for the conference.
On 5 November 2026, TRAI released its recommendations on the framework for Satellite Communication Network Provider Authorisation and the assignment of spectrum to such providers (TRAI Press Release No. 151/2026). DoT had asked for them on 3 July 2025. TRAI's consultation paper came out on 8 April 2026 and drew comments from 31 stakeholders, counter-comments from 12, and an open house on 2 July 2026. The table summarises the recommendations as TRAI and PIB published them.
| TRAI recommendation (5 November 2026) | Detail |
|---|---|
| New authorisation | Satellite Communication Network Provider Authorisation under Section 3(1)(b) of the Telecommunications Act, 2023 |
| Business model | Providers offer Satellite Communication Network as a Service (SCNaaS) to licensed operators; they may not serve users directly |
| Term | National area, up to 20 years, renewable for up to 20 years |
| MSS-based D2D | Permitted, using L-band and S-band MSS spectrum |
| IMT-based D2D | Permitted on a non-interference, non-protection basis under No. 4.4, without waiting for WRC-27 |
| IMT bands named | FDD bands at 600, 700, 800, 900, 1800 and 2100 MHz |
| Condition | Access providers that together hold the channel across all 22 licensed service areas must agree |
| Frequency plan | Add MSS as a secondary service in those bands in the National Frequency Allocation Plan, with an India-specific footnote |
| Interference | Set limits on the aggregate field strength from all satellite beams |
| Fees | Authorisation fee of 8% of AGR with no minimum; annual minimum spectrum charge of ₹3,500 per MHz for FSS or MSS spectrum assigned by the government; no extra charge on partner IMT spectrum used for D2D |
| Handsets | Government should encourage makers to support the applicable MSS bands in future smartphones sold in India |
TRAI also said that any decision India takes on IMT-based D2D after WRC-27 should then apply to the service. In effect, India would authorise D2D nationally now and align with the treaty later. That matches the latitude Maniewicz described: governments are sovereign within their borders and can move ahead of WRC decisions, then adapt.
Three points for Indian readers:
- These are recommendations. DoT must accept, modify or reject them. We found no DoT decision as of 11 November 2026.
- Operators control the IMT route. IMT-based D2D needs the spectrum holders' agreement across all 22 service areas, so Airtel, Jio, Vi or BSNL partnerships will decide who offers it.
- India is engaged at the ITU. At the ITU-APT Foundation of India's April 2025 WRC-27 workshop, its president named items 1.7 and 1.13 as critical to India's interests, and a DoT Joint Wireless Advisor chaired the D2D session. India has no candidate in the Radiocommunication Bureau director race after the reported withdrawal.
US, UK and EU notes
US. The FCC adopted its Supplemental Coverage from Space framework (FCC 24-28) on 14 March 2024, letting satellite operators partner with terrestrial carriers to reach ordinary handsets in spectrum previously allocated only to terrestrial service. Arpan Sura, senior counsel to FCC Chairman Carr, told the RCR panel that the order had been a success and pointed to the approval of AST SpaceMobile's 248-satellite constellation over low-band spectrum held by Verizon and AT&T.
UK. Ofcom published its final decisions on 9 December 2025 to authorise D2D in the spectrum held by UK mobile operators. In April 2026 it approved a licence variation for VodafoneThree to offer D2D in its 900 MHz spectrum, and handset licence exemption regulations for that service were set to take effect on 10 July 2026.
EU. Spain has run tightly controlled 2.6 GHz trials, MasOrange with Starlink. Julia Criado, Spain's deputy director general for spectrum planning and chair of the EU Radio Spectrum Policy Group, told the RCR panel that Spain is waiting for WRC-27 for a more permanent framework with better protection for incumbents. She noted that the group has issued an opinion on D2D as a complement to terrestrial networks.
What 3GPP standards add, and what they do not
Spectrum and standards move on separate tracks. 3GPP Release 17 was the first release with normative satellite (NTN) requirements and defined the n255 (L-band) and n256 (S-band) satellite bands; Release 18 added n254. Release 20, the final 5G-Advanced-only release, targets its Stage 3 freeze in March 2027 and its final ASN.1 and OpenAPI freeze in June 2027, and lists satellite and NTN among its work areas. Our Release 20 guide covers the work items. On 22 October 2026, the Mobile Satellite Services Association became a 3GPP Market Representation Partner, bringing satellite operators, mobile operators and chipset makers into requirement-setting. None of this decides which bands a satellite may use over a given country. WRC-27 and national regulators do that.
What app and enterprise teams should expect
The commercial picture is ahead of the rules. GSMA Intelligence counts 151 operators with satellite services that are live, in testing or planned, according to a September 2026 GSMA article by Barbara Pareglio. On stage at World Space Business Week, she estimated that about 50 are live, said the technology is not yet at 3G level, and argued that the lasting market is the coverage gap: about 4% of the world's population, roughly 300 million people, whom terrestrial networks do not reach economically.
For 2027 to 2029, plan on four behaviours:
- Messaging and alerts first. Expect text, emergency messaging, location pings and small data before general browsing or video.
- Intermittent, slow links. Satellite passes, shared beams and low power mean long and variable latency, and sessions that drop.
- Operator-mediated access. Under TRAI's model, users in India would reach satellites through their existing mobile operator, so carrier plans and partnerships decide availability.
- Uneven handsets. IMT-band D2D can reach existing phones; MSS-band D2D needs handsets that support L-band or S-band, which TRAI wants encouraged.
Engineering patterns that work on satellite links
- Offline-first sync. Queue writes locally, sync when any link appears, and resolve conflicts deterministically.
- Compact payloads. Use small binary or minimal JSON messages for status updates; defer photos, logs and attachments to terrestrial or Wi-Fi.
- Idempotent APIs. Retries are normal on lossy links; idempotency keys stop duplicate orders or tickets.
- Delivery receipts and timeouts. Show queued, sent and delivered states accurately instead of spinners.
- Fallback identity flows. SMS OTP may arrive late or not at all on satellite; offer passkeys or in-app approval. Our Android 17 SMS OTP guide covers the terrestrial side.
- Network-aware behaviour. Detect constrained connectivity through OS signals where available, and switch to a low-data mode.
- Test on bad networks. Add QA runs with high latency, packet loss and long disconnections, using network conditioning tools, so satellite behaviour is not discovered in the field.
Questions to ask operators and satellite providers
Enterprise buyers will be offered satellite add-ons before WRC-27 settles the rules. These questions separate a durable service from a trial:
- What is the licence basis in each country? A national authorisation, a No. 4.4 notification and an MSS allocation carry different levels of protection.
- What happens if rules change after WRC-27? Ask for migration and termination terms if a regulator changes bands or conditions.
- Which of our devices work? Get a supported list by model and firmware, and whether it uses IMT bands or MSS L-band and S-band.
- What are the limits? Message size, messages per month, data caps, typical delivery delay and any per-message charges.
- Does it carry emergency traffic? Check emergency messaging, location sharing and how alerts reach control rooms.
- Where is traffic handled? Ask where gateways sit and how data is processed, so you can map it under the DPDP Act or GDPR; our DPDP Rules checklist covers the Indian obligations.
- What are the coverage gaps? Request coverage maps and expected gaps between satellite passes for your sites.
- Does it work across borders? For logistics and maritime assets, confirm roaming terms in every country on the route.
Worked example: a field-service app on a satellite link
Take an Indian utility with 500 field technicians, each sending 40 job-status updates a day from areas with patchy coverage. The figures are illustrative inputs to show the arithmetic, not measured satellite rates, and use decimal units (1 MB = 1,000 KB = 1,000,000 bytes).
Today's app. Each update is a 2 KB JSON payload with headers and metadata. 500 × 40 = 20,000 updates a day. 20,000 × 2 KB = 40,000 KB, or 40 MB a day.
Satellite-ready app. Each update is a 120-byte compact message (job ID, status code, timestamp, coarse location). 20,000 × 120 bytes = 2,400,000 bytes, or 2.4 MB a day.
Reduction: 40 ÷ 2.4 = about 16.7 times less data.
Photos. One 1.5 MB site photo equals 1,500 KB ÷ 2 KB = 750 of today's updates, or 1,500,000 ÷ 120 = 12,500 compact updates. Photos must wait in a queue for terrestrial coverage.
If a D2D plan is priced per message or per kilobyte, the compact design is what makes satellite coverage affordable. If it is a flat add-on, the compact design is still what gets updates through within a single satellite pass. Get actual limits and prices from your operator before committing.
Decision table: what to do now
| If you are | And | Do this |
|---|---|---|
| An app team | Users work in rural, maritime or disaster-prone areas | Build offline-first sync and compact messages now, before any satellite plan exists |
| An app team | Login relies on SMS OTP | Add passkeys or in-app approval as a fallback |
| An enterprise in India | You run field forces or remote assets | Ask Airtel, Jio, Vi or BSNL about D2D plans once DoT decides on TRAI's recommendations |
| An enterprise | You track assets across borders | Evaluate MSS-band IoT services now; items 1.12 and 1.14 affect future capacity |
| A device buyer | You refresh rugged or field devices in 2027 | Prefer models that support satellite bands, including L-band and S-band MSS |
| A telecom or satellite business | You plan IMT-band D2D in India | Prepare for the 22-service-area consent condition and No. 4.4 non-protection terms |
Checklist before, during and after WRC-27
- Now: identify user journeys that fail without terrestrial coverage, and add offline-first handling.
- Now: add passkey or in-app approval fallbacks to SMS-dependent flows.
- When DoT decides: read the final Indian framework for which bands, operators and devices are covered.
- January 2027: note who leads the Radiocommunication Bureau into the conference.
- April 2027: read the CPM27-2 report on item 1.13 for the methods on the table.
- 18 October to 12 November 2027: follow WRC-27 outcomes on items 1.13, 1.14 and 7.
- After WRC-27: watch for National Frequency Allocation Plan amendments in India and licence changes elsewhere, then revisit operator contracts.
How eCorpIT can help
eCorpIT is a Gurugram-based technology organisation, founded in 2021, assessed at CMMI Level 5 and MSME certified, with senior-led engineering teams working across AWS, Microsoft and Google platforms. We build offline-first mobile and field apps that keep working on slow, intermittent links, through our mobile app development services. Talk to us at /contact-us/.
Last updated: 11 November 2026.
