Statement published 23 October 2026
To support satellite connectivity services for UK ships and aircraft, we have decided to make more spectrum available for Earth Stations in Motion (ESIM) uplink, aligned with the ITU Radio Regulations.
This extends the existing authorisations in the Ku and Ka bands to include:
- new authorisations for aeronautical ESIMs connecting to:
- GSO satellites in 12.75-13.25 GHz and 27.8185-28.4545 GHz and 28.8265-29.4625 GHz.
- NGSO satellites in 27.5-29.1 GHz and 29.5-30 GHz.
- new authorisations for maritime ESIMs connecting to:
- GSO satellites in 12.75-13.25 GHz and 27.8185-28.4545 GHz and 28.8265-29.4625 GHz.
- NGSO satellites in 27.8185-28.4545 GHz and 28.8265-29.1 GHz.
We also confirm our decision to update the list of protected aerodromes in Schedule 4 of the licence. As such, we are also notifying existing ESN licensees of our intention to vary these licences. Please see our General Notice.
We have also decided to update our Aircraft radio and Ship radio licences to include all these new frequencies, and to add those frequencies which can be used in the UK to our Earth Station Network (ESN) licence, as well as to update the relevant Interface Requirements (IR 2077 and IR 2093) to reflect this new use.
We will provide more information to licensees on when updated licences can be requested through our Licensing updates web page.