U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton's denial of motions to compel arbitration in litigation alleging fraudulent direct broadcast satellite subscription terms was appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by defendants DirecTV and Lonstein Law Office (see here and here, in Pacer) this week. Doneyda Perez, a California beauty shop owner, alleged violations of the California Unfair Competition Law and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by DirecTV selling small businesses satellite pay-TV service under residential accounts and then threatening litigation, with Lonstein representing the company. Staton, of Santa Ana, California, said (in Pacer) May 1 DirecTV "short-circuited" the traditional procedure of providing a customer agreement.

The OneWeb/Intelsat deal is off, with Intelsat bondholders not fans of the terms of the senior unsecured note exchanges between the two companies, Intelsat said in a news release Thursday: It and OneWeb will continue jointly developing services using Intelsat's geosynchronous and OneWeb's low earth orbit constellations and to act as a SoftBank sub-distributor. The transaction was announced earlier this year (see 1702280057). FCC members are tentatively to vote at their June 22 meeting on OneWeb's requested U.S. market access for its 720-satellite constellation (see 1706010049).

Hytera agreed to pay $69 million for Norsat, up from the $62 million announced earlier this year (see 1703270008). In a news release Wednesday, Norsat said the deal still requires approval of its shareholders and regulatory signoffs, and is expected to close in Q3.

Maritime demand will drive an expected twelvefold increase in Arctic and Antarctic commercial mobility capacity revenue 2015-25, Northern Sky Research said in a news release Tuesday. NSR said the polar regions are niche markets, but lack of competition and connectivity needs mean they're growth opportunities. It said those with high-throughput satellite capacity "will be the largest winners," with the polar regions representing an estimated $116 million in HTS revenue by 2025. It said low earth orbit HTS -- with its lower capacity costs and coverage better suited for higher latitudes -- could have growing demand through government-backed universal service obligation programs. The major barrier to a big market presence is the lack of significant populations in the regions, NSR said.

Atlas Space Operations plans to track a low earth orbit satellite, Athena, for another company. In an FCC International Bureau earth station authorization application Monday, the Michigan-based satellite operations and control services company said Athena would pass over the California earth station site up to seven times a day and the earth station would operate in the 2025-2100 MHz band.

Comments or petitions to deny the 10 non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) license applications and U.S. market access petitions filed in November (see 1611160010) are due June 26, the FCC International Bureau said in a public notice Friday. Responses and oppositions are due July 7, with replies to oppositions due July 14. The bureau also set a July 26 deadline for additional applications and petitions for declaratory ruling for NGSO-like operations in the 12.75-13.25 GHz, 13.85-14 GHz, 18.6-18.8 GHz, 19.3-20.2 GHz and 29.1-29.5 GHz bands. It said applications and petitions received by then will be considered together with the lead applications already filed by SpaceX, Space Norway, Karousel, Boeing, Telesat Canada, LeoSat, O3b, Audacy, ViaSat and Theia Holdings for those frequency bands, but applications received afterward might not be entitled to shared use.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell met last week with Chairman Ajit Pai to push for the agency to move on its 2013 NPRM about allocating spectrum for commercial space launches. In an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 13-115, SpaceX said such an allocation would help streamline launch spectrum licensing. The company has met twice with Pai about launch spectrum allocations (see 1703140048). The company also backed the pending NPRM on the update to Part 2 and 25 rules.

Intelsat hopes to launch its Galaxy 14R satellite to replace Galaxy 14 in Q4 2019, with its Galaxy 15R satellite to replace Galaxy 15 to follow in Q2 2022, it said in FCC International Bureau applications (see here and here) Wednesday. Galaxy 14 operates at 125 degrees west, as would 14R, it said. Intelsat also said 14R would operate in 14's C-band frequencies plus extended C-, Ku- and Ka-band frequencies not used by 14. The C-band Galaxy 15 operates at 133 degrees west, as would 15R, it said, saying Galaxy 15R would include Ku-band frequencies not used by 15.

The deadline for comments about or petitions to deny Globalstar's request for modification of its satellite and earth station licenses to implement its planned ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) service is June 23, the FCC International Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday. Responses and oppositions to petitions are due July 3, and replies to oppositions July 11, it said. The bureau said Globalstar's ATC service base stations and user terminals will operate in the 2483.5-2495 MHz band.

Each month that the FCC takes in deciding on Ligado's pending petitions for its proposed terrestrial low-power broadband service leads to $100 million to $2 billion lost in consumer value, former Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth said in an economic analysis partially underwritten by the company. The analysis, submitted by Ligado and to be posted in docket 11-109, said the public benefits of the twin Ligado petitions' approval would be clarification and enhancement of property rights in spectrum, help in resolving interference disputes, demonstration of "continued American leadership in spectrum policy," and other benefits: There are "few if any" public objections to the plan, and benefits exceed the costs, it said.