Swedish Space Corp. and BridgeSat agreed to a long-term partnership for BridgeSat to install its satellite optical communications equipment at some SSC earth stations and the two partnering commercially, they said in a news release Friday. "Optical communications is well suited when satellite operators need to downlink large quantities of data, but have limited access to RF spectrum," said SSC President-Satellite Management Services Leif Österbo.
Qantas is offering "free, gate-to-gate in-flight Wi-Fi" on one ViaSat-equipped Boeing 737-800 aircraft, and plans to install ViaSat equipment on all its Boeing 737 and Airbus A330 aircraft starting later this year, it said in a news release Friday. Qantas said it, ViaSat and broadband network service provider nbn have been doing in-flight Wi-Fi tests on the aircraft for some weeks.
Recent criticisms of Ligado's proposed satellite/terrestrial LTE network are part of "how the game works," said Chief Legal Officer Valerie Green in an opinion piece Friday in The Hill. "Building this network is good for America and important for our future. Study after study has shown it can be done safely and effectively .... For anyone who still has concerns, we’ve made it clear that our door is always open." She said Ligado's network fits squarely into digital infrastructure that could be part of any infrastructure spending bill. The Green piece follows a column earlier last week in The Hill by Robert McDowell of Cooley criticizing the LTE plans (see 1704050055). In an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 11-109, Ligado recapped a meeting between Green and aides to Chairman Ajit Pai in which it again called for a proposed rulemaking regarding terrestrial commercial sharing of the 1675-1680 MHz band used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (see 1608120033) and discussed its work with the Federal Aviation Administration on establishing power limits in the 1526-1536 MHz band that would protect GPS devices including noncertified aviation receivers.
Satellite backhaul demands skyrocketed in 2016, but the satellite industry needs mainstream mobile operators, not just early adopters, to get significant growth, said Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm-Serra in an NSR blog post Thursday. NSR said better satellite pricing plus smart terminals made satellite an increasingly competitive option for backhaul needs at high-speed low-volume sites, but "cheap capacity and technology per se won’t make this market thrive." It said those pricing and technology issues are opening the door to satellite use cases beyond traditional rural coverage and into network resiliency, traffic offload or sporadic-traffic sites.
Herring Networks' One America News Network and A Wealth of Entertainment channels are now on DirecTV's lineup and will become part of DirecTV Now within weeks, Herring said in a news release Wednesday.
The FCC International Bureau OK'd AMS Spectrum Holdings' buy of Critical Alert Systems' earth station license as part of AMS' buy of CAS' paging business, with a grant of the license transfer approved Tuesday. AMS said the CAS purchase would complement its existing services and open the door to new customers.
Teleport operators generally see commercial and operational performance of satellite operators up in 2017 over 2016, the World Teleport Association said in a news release Monday. WTA said teleport operators say that satellite operators' commercial performance is up 9 percent over 2016, while operational performance is up 11 percent. WTA said the level of satellite operator interference with teleport operators for offering of managed services varies by company, with Intelsat and SES being frequent competitors. The group said teleport operators see less competitive threat from satellite operators in 2017 than in 2016, though that competition was seen as less fair than it was in 2016.
Intelsat wants to move its Intelsat 5 satellite from 157 to 156.9 degrees east to make room for Telkom-2, it said in an FCC International Bureau filing Friday. Intelsat said Telkom-2 is expected to arrive at 157 degrees east in early June and Intelsat 5 relocation should start on April 30. The company in January sought bureau approval for authority to operate Telkom-2.
Big data via satellite applications generated $580 million in retail revenue in 2016, and could hit nearly $2.4 billion by 2026, Northern Sky Research (NSR) said in a news release posted Monday. That growth will require satellite operators to integrate, process and analyze an increasing range of data from earth observation and IoT sources, it said. NSR said new satellite technology is leading to lower data acquisition, storage and processing costs.
ViaSat wants permission to deploy 4 million 0.75-meter and 10,000 1.8-meter fixed earth stations. In an International Bureau application Friday, the company said the earth station network will communicate with ViaSat's existing Ka-band constellation and ViaSat-2, scheduled to launch this month, for broadband provision. It said the network would use Ka-band spectrum already authorized. ViaSat said the 0.75-meter earth stations would be a variation of an already licensed earth station model. It wanted a waiver of Section 25 rules regarding blanket licenses so as to allow earth stations to operate at 17.7-18.3 GHz, 18.8-19.3 GHz, and 28.6-29.1 GHz without specifying their locations.