Argentina's telecom regulator has done something most spectrum agencies are too cautious to attempt: it authorized a commercial operator to use frequencies that its own rulebook has not yet formally assigned to satellite service. On 28 May 2026, the Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones (ENACOM) issued Resolución Sintetizada 372/2026, signed by interventor Juan Martín Ozores and published in the Boletín Oficial on 1 June. It grants Starlink Argentina, "con carácter de excepción," permission to operate gateway earth stations in the W-band — the 92 to 114.25 GHz range — to feed its low-Earth-orbit constellation.
What the resolution actually does
The authorization covers five uplink (Earth-to-space) segments: 92–94 GHz, 94.1–95 GHz, 95–100 GHz, 102–109.5 GHz, and 111.8–114.25 GHz, all for Starlink's Version 5 gateways within the Fixed Satellite Service (FSS). The catch is in the framing: these segments are not yet attributed to FSS in Argentina's national frequency plan. ENACOM is permitting use ahead of formal attribution rather than waiting for a multi-year rulemaking to conclude first.
This is genuinely greenfield spectrum. The W-band sits far above the Ku, Ka, Q and V bands that satellite operators have historically fought over. At these frequencies there is enormous bandwidth and very little incumbent congestion — which is precisely why almost no national regulator has commercial FSS rules for it yet. Argentina now has five Starlink gateways on the ground (Campana, La Plata, Salta, Río Negro, and Chivilcoy, the last carrying 16 antennas since 2025), and ENACOM's own characterization is that the new spectrum can roughly triple network capacity, enabling greater frequency reuse and higher user density.
The conditions are the point
What makes this proportionate rather than reckless is that the grant is fenced with obligations, not handed over as a blank cheque. The resolution requires Starlink to:
- Cause no harmful interference to authorized stations, and bear responsibility for resolving any interference complaints itself.
- Respect non-ionizing radiation (RNI) exposure limits.
- Protect radio astronomy services in the affected bands, consistent with the ITU Radio Regulations footnote (Nota 5.149) flagged in the text.
- Conduct a fresh electromagnetic-compatibility study for any change in technical parameters or station location — explicitly stated as non-optional.
- Adapt to future ITU recommendations and any national rules that are subsequently enacted.
That last clause is the most important one. The authorization is conditional and revisable by design: if the ITU attributes the band differently, or Argentina later writes its own W-band plan, Starlink's exceptional permission must yield. This is spectrum policy as a provisional license to experiment, not a permanent entitlement.
The case against — taken seriously
The strongest objection is real and deserves a fair hearing. Granting one named operator access to unattributed spectrum, outside an open attribution proceeding, risks entrenching a first mover before competitors or a public consultation can weigh in. A rival operator, a future GEO licensee, or an Argentine startup could argue it was denied a level playing field. And the W-band genuinely matters to science: radio astronomy and passive Earth-observation sensors use slices of this range, and once a megaconstellation's gateways are radiating, retrofitting protection is harder than designing it in. Critics of "permissionless" spectrum allocation are right that attribution processes exist partly to surface exactly these competing claims.
Why the proportionate path still wins here
But the alternative — making productive spectrum sit idle for years while a formal attribution grinds through committee — has its own large and underpriced cost. Every month Argentina's rural and underserved users wait is a month of capacity not deployed. Satellite access in the country grew from 92,757 connections at the end of 2024 to 452,018 across 2025, and ENACOM estimates roughly 750,000 by April 2026, projecting one million before year-end, with Starlink the majority. Globally Starlink crossed 12 million subscribers in June 2026. Demand is not hypothetical; it is arriving faster than traditional rulemaking cycles can answer.
A conditional, revocable, interference-protected authorization is the textbook proportionate response: it lets capacity scale now while preserving every lever the regulator needs to course-correct later. The EMC-study trigger, the radio-astronomy carve-out, and the "adapt to future rules" clause mean ENACOM has not surrendered authority — it has sequenced it, allowing deployment under supervision rather than blocking deployment pending perfection.
The legitimate worry about operator-specific favoritism is best answered not by withholding the grant but by generalizing it. ENACOM should publish the technical criteria it applied and commit to granting equivalent exceptional access to any qualifying applicant on the same terms — technology- and operator-neutral, with a defined review or sunset date tied to the eventual national attribution. That converts a one-off exception into a transparent, contestable framework, neutralizing the capture critique while keeping the speed advantage.
The wider lesson
Most spectrum regulators default to "no until fully decided." Resolution 372/2026 inverts that into "yes, conditionally, while we decide" — and pairs it with enforceable guardrails on interference, radiation, and science protection. For a band almost no one has commercialized, in a country where connectivity demand is outpacing the rulebook, that is the right instinct. The test now is whether ENACOM applies the same openness to the next applicant — because a proportionate exception only stays proportionate if it is available to more than one company.