Spectrum Scarcity and the Satellite Broadband Land Grab: Is the ITU Losing Control of a Finite Resource?

Spectrum Scarcity and the Satellite Broadband Land Grab: Is the ITU Losing Control of a Finite Resource?

On the last days of December 2025, Chinese entities submitted paperwork to the International Telecommunication Union for two proposed non-geostationary satellite constellations, designated CTC-1 and CTC-2, each covering 96,714 satellites in 3,660 orbital planes. Together the filings covered nearly 200,000 satellites, making them among the largest constellation submissions ever received by the ITU's Radiocommunication Bureau.