After announcing a deal with Fox to deliver select NCAA college football games in 4K (see 1709210022), Dish Network continued filling its Ultra HD content palette Friday, announcing a multiroom 4K Netflix streaming via its flagship Joey set-top box. The box connected to a Dish Hopper 3 DVR can support six 4K Joey STBs, bringing the number of supported 4K TVs to seven, Dish said. Users can find 4K content, identifiable by “4K” or “UHD,” via the Netflix app on the Dish remote control or in the programming guide, it said. The 4K streaming is exclusive to Netflix since Dish doesn’t offer Amazon apps on its set-tops, a Dish spokeswoman said.

The ITU constitution is all about collective sharing and protection of spectrum, but rules on non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite systems violate those fundamentals, Thomas Choi, CEO of satellite operator ABS, blogged Friday on LinkedIn. A few companies control almost all C- and Ku-band spectrum in the geostationary arc, boxing out new operators and emerging nations, and a second round of "this spectrum imperialism" is coming with NGSO constellations, Choi said. Rules have some NGSO operators rushing to launch a handful of satellites before ITU filings expire to try to cement ITU priority to NGSO spectrum in the Ka- and Ku-bands, and the rules need to be addressed at the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19), Choi said. He said NGSO coordination is a major technical challenge and regardless of exclusivity and forced sharing issues, it's impractical that more than a few NGSO systems can share bands globally. Deep-pocketed companies from richer nations "stand to lock up the usable frequencies in the NGSO arc," and developing countries "will find themselves once again ‘locked out’ of the exclusive club of spectrum owning nations." Choi said WRC-19 regulation changes should include stipulations NGSO systems that lack landing rights in any specific country should design systems to shut off beams when they cross over nations where they lack licenses, if such requests are made by that nation.

Space & Satellite Professionals International is the new name for the former Society of Satellite Professionals, it said Thursday. It said the name change reflects an expanded mission with the satellite industry expanding into new businesses and markets. It also reflects expanded membership, it said, with companies such as Blue Origin, DigitalGlobe, Kymeta, Planet and SpaceX joining in the past year.

Raycom Media and DirecTV signed a carriage agreement that will keep Raycom's 54 stations on the direct broadcast satellite system, Raycom said Wednesday.

In-flight connectivity could be a $130 billion market globally within 20 years, representing $30 billion additional revenue for airlines by 2035, said a London School of Economics and Political Science study commissioned by Inmarsat, the company said Tuesday. It said in-flight connectivity could provide $1 billion revenue for airlines by 2018, with most coming from broadband access, with advertising, e-commerce and premium content adding to that total. It said by 2035, broadband access revenue could hit $15.9 billion, with e-commerce another $6.8 billion and ads $6 billion. The LSE study said roughly 53 of the estimated 5,000 airlines worldwide offer in-flight connectivity, but it will be ubiquitous by 2035.

Instead of including the 29.25-29.3 GHz band as spectrum available for earth stations in motion, the agency should wait until industry someday develops methods for creating exclusion zones that would protect Iridium earth stations from ESIMs, Iridium told FCC International Bureau staffers, said a filing Monday in docket 17-95. It said the exclusion zone boundary issue is complicated by the fact the location and number of geostationary orbit ESIM terminals -- especially those for earth stations aboard aircraft -- will change, sometimes constantly.

The FCC released a non-geostationary orbit satellite rules update order Wednesday, approved the previous day by the commissioners (see 1709260035). The final order was largely identical to the draft, though it also said when it comes to NGSO sharing with non-satellite platforms, the agency didn't see a basis in the record for initiating a proceeding. The FCC also said in the final order it would require NGSO fixed satellite service operators go through ITU review of their equivalent power flux density demonstrations and then provide the commission with the data files.

The global satellite machine-to-machine and IoT market should reach $2.9 billion in annual retail revenue by 2026, Northern Sky Research said Tuesday. NSR said land tracking, and particularly cargo tracking, likely will be the most profitable and competitive segment. It said most M2M and IoT services need only low bandwidth currently, but some verticals over the next decade will need additional bandwidth requirements for big data analysis, engine telematics and live data streaming, and those could be targeted by new mobile satellite service constellations. Low bandwidth and latency insensitive applications will be the focus of small satellite constellations, it said, as the business case for smallsat IoT-exclusive constellations is a question mark.

ViaSat and Boeing are starting construction, integration and testing of what are to be the first two ViaSat-3 satellites, they said Monday. ViaSat completed critical design review milestones for the ViaSat-3 class, they said. The ViaSat-3 payload is being designed and built by ViaSat, and Boeing is building the all-electric propulsion platform, which will be delivered to ViaSat's satellite integration facility for installation and testing, they said. Then the completed payload module will be sent back to Boeing for further testing for launch and operational readiness.

The National Labor Relations Board didn't apply the right legal standards and ignored its own precedent when it found Dish Network employee arbitration agreement's confidentiality provision violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the company said in a docket 17-60368 brief (in Pacer) filed Friday with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It said NLRB improperly concluded a one-time oral command to a worker to keep a workplace investigation private was an NLRA violation despite the board also concluding Dish didn't have any workplace rule to that effect. The company is appealing an April 13 NLRB decision on a complaint brought by a Colorado call center worker who was suspended for alleged workplace policy violations and subsequently fired. The NLRB didn't comment Monday.