More credit for broader coverage and limited package bids would help improve the Connect America Fund Phase II bidding process, ViaSat said in an FCC docket 10-90 ex parte filing posted Wednesday. Calling the current CAF II bidding structure "an easy but flawed design," ViaSat said giving each bid a quality score, using FCC-determined performance and latency tiers, would allow for a trade-off between higher quality in some areas vs. more census block groups covered. It said its proposal would still prioritize low-latency, high-tier service but makes low marginal bids for census blog groups safer, thus expanding the number of locations served. The filing recapped a meeting involving ViaSat Associate General Counsel-Regulatory Affairs Chris Murphy, Auctionomics Chairman Paul Milgrom and outside counsel John Janka of Latham & Watkins with FCC staff including Wireline Bureau Chief of Staff Kirk Burgee and International Bureau Satellite Division Deputy Chief Kerry Murray.

The first set of Iridium's Next satellites were integrated into the company's first-generation constellation to be used for purposes including broadband, it said in a news release Tuesday: There have been three individual slot swaps and two dual slot swaps of Next satellites replacing first-gen satellites, with two Next satellites still drifting to their assigned orbital planes. The company said the second payload of 10 Next satellites is scheduled to launch June 29 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, with 75 satellites to be launched in eight launches by the time the constellation is complete in mid-2018.

An estimated 2,356 satellites are expected to launch over the next decade, with satellite manufacturing and launch markets to generate $258 billion in revenues from them, Northern Sky Research said in a news release Monday. NSR said there's an increased focus on new technologies and operations -- such as mass production and in-orbit servicing -- for satellites. Capacity issues and the decline in data pricing helped drive down geostationary orbit orders in 2016, with that expected to continue during this year, and the firm said there will be "a rebalancing of the market," with more emphasis on GSO/non-geostationary orbit combinations.

The application process for space and ground component authorizations for new satellite systems should be streamlined into a unified authorization system with a five-year milestone for placing the components for that network into operation, Hughes Network Systems CEO Pradman Kaul told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, according to an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 16-124. Current rules only allow individually licensed earth station authorizations to be obtained a year before service commences, and that created a two-step process, different from how it licenses terrestrial wireless operations. Hughes said it's important that geostationary and non-geostationary satellites have co-primary status in the 18.8-19.3 GHz and 28.6-29.1 GHz bands, in a separate filing in docket 16-408, and argued for the spectrum frontiers proceeding being technology neutral "to ensure equitable competition among platforms." Hughes said that doesn't mean spectrum should be apportioned equally among technologies, but that platforms should have adequate access so they can compete with other platforms in different market segments.

Dish Network and plaintiffs in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class-action suit against the company are at odds over how to handle claims. In a post-trial procedures motion (in Pacer) filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, North Carolina, Dish said it wants to be able to challenge each claim post-trial. Dish said its proposed post-trial procedures -- each ostensible class member filing a claim form, with jury trials for each one where the parties disagree and the court finds material issues of fact -- "offer a fair, reasonable and practical approach." Plaintiff Thomas Krakauer and the others in a separate motion (in Pacer) Wednesday said Dish's suggested claims process is unduly burdensome in that it proposes adversarial proceeds in contests of payments that, in most cases, would likely amount to a few hundred dollars. "Why Dish wants these procedures is ... clear: it wants the money back. Dish should not get the money back," the plaintiffs said, saying the court should use the class member identification methods similar to what it used at the class notice stage. And it proposed any unclaimed funds after distribution not go to Dish, since the jury found it liable for the 51,119 TCPA violations alleged in the trial, but be directed as escheat to the government, which would determine recipients after distribution. A 10-person jury in January awarded class members $400 per TCPA violation and plaintiffs are seeking a court enhancement to increase the award to $1,200 per violation (see 1702140010).

ViaSat's ViaSat-2 satellite is scheduled for a June 1 launch, the company said in a news release Wednesday. The satellite will provide broadband service from a 69.9 degrees west orbit, covering North and Central America, the Caribbean and part of South America, plus the primary aeronautical and maritime routes across the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe, it said. The Ka-band satellite is expected to start service in early 2018, it said.

Aireon and the Federal Aviation Administration collaborated on a test flight of a satellite-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast system, using an FAA aircraft with three Aireon payloads receiving ADS-B data, the company said in a news release Wednesday. The test flight March 30 was used to validate Aireon capabilities, it said. It also said the FAA will compare Aireon space-based ADS-B data to existing ADS-B ground station data. Aireon said it expects its satellite-based ADS-B system to be operational in 2018, after the completion of the Iridium Next constellation (see 1602250048).

Satellite operators took their proposal for dividing the 47 GHz and 50 GHz bands into sub-bands (see 1704130062) to meetings with FCC staffers, according to an ex parte filing Wednesday in docket 14-177. The operators said they told FCC staff the four sub-bands approach "strikes a fair and spectrally efficient balance" for fixed satellite service and upper microwave flexible use service sharing. The filing recapped a meeting involving International and Wireless bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology staffers with satellite officials including EchoStar Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner, EchoStar Senior Principal Engineer-Regulatory Affairs Brennan Price, Inmarsat Director-Regulatory Giselle Creeser and Intelsat Associate General Counsel Susan Crandall.

Satellites will enjoy direct-to-home (DTH) and video distribution work for a long time, but capacity growth will be limited by cable TV and IPTV platforms using HEVC to cut costs, said Northern Sky Research (NSR) analyst Alan Crisp in a blog post Monday. Satellite operators thus need to account for accelerating video compression levels in their long-term strategic planning, and the biggest growth opportunities will be emerging markets, NSR said. HEVC generally has been talked about for Ultra HD content, but SD and HD channels likely will move to HEVC compression, which could cut capacity requirements by more than 40 percent, it said, noting only some platforms will likely make that switch in the next decade, with DTH unlikely to get into HEVC much because of the cost of upgrading set-top boxes to handle HEVC compression.

The FCC International Bureau wants further explanation of why Spectrum Five turned down U.S. market access only to seek it again days later. In a letter Tuesday to Spectrum Five President David Wilson, Satellite Division Chief Jose Albuquerque set a May 2 deadline for the company to explain why it declined on April 3 its grant of market access for a 17/24 GHz broadcast satellite service satellite at 95.15 degrees west, and what changed by April 11, when it re-petitioned for that same access (see 1704120013). The FCC also asked Spectrum Five to confirm that whatever prevented it from posting bond after receiving its market access grant in March has been resolved and that the company will be able to accept the grant of market access if that petition is granted within the next six months.