With the pace of commercial space launch activity and the number of launch companies expected to grow in coming years, streamlining launch spectrum licensing through allocating spectrum for commercial space launches would help, SpaceX officials told an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in an ex parte meeting recapped in a docket 13-115 filing posted Thursday. At the meeting were Vice President-Satellite Government Affairs Patricia Cooper and Director-Government Affairs Mat Dunn. SpaceX previously met with Chairman Ajit Pai to push the NTIA proposal for launch spectrum allocation (see 1703140048).
Aireon and Enaire are talking about a satellite-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) air traffic monitoring system for the Spanish air navigation manager, Aireon said in a news release Thursday announcing a memorandum of agreement between the two. Aireon said its ADS-B system is scheduled for a 2018 completion, following deployment of Iridium's Next constellation.
Hughes Network's HughesNet Gen5 satellite broadband service is now available through the General Services Administration's IT Schedule 70, a list of vendors that GSA has preauthorized to provide IT equipment, software and services to government agencies, Hughes said in a news release Thursday.
Satellite interests are pushing the FCC to adopt rules on satellite/upper microwave flexible use system (UMFUS) sharing in the 28 GHz and 37/39 GHz bands. In a docket 14-177 ex parte filing posted Wednesday. operators pitched reduction in maximum base station power limits for UMFUS and a requirement for UMFUS use of beam forming and power control. They said such steps are needed to ensure UMFUS doesn't cause aggregate interference to satellites in the 28 GHz band and to aid opportunistic sharing between UMFUS and satellite receivers in the 37/39 GHz bands. The spectrum frontiers record makes clear UMFUS is likely to take such steps to prevent interference with their own networks, so including them in rules creates more certainty about the possibility of spectrum sharing, the satellite operators said. The filing recapped a meeting involving International Bureau personnel including Satellite Division head Jose Albuquerque with EchoStar Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner, Inmarsat Director-Regulatory Giselle Creeser, OneWeb Policy Director Marc Dupuis, O3b regulatory counsel William Lewis, Intelsat Spectrum Policy-Americas Manager Alexander Gerdenitsch and Boeing outside counsel Bruce Olcott of Jones Day.
New York state’s broadband subsidy auction may be “inconsistent with FCC requirements,” Hughes warned Monday in docket 10-90. In an ex-parte letter to the FCC posted Tuesday, Hughes urged the FCC to ask New York to modify the plan the state outlined last week for the auction that's receiving up to $170.4 million in federal Connect America Fund support (see 1703230027). The proposal advantages high-speed, low-latency bids, and discredits the high speeds that can be provided by high-latency providers like satellite companies, Hughes said. “This inflexibility against recognizing satellite providers’ actual offered speeds creates an unfair disadvantage against them by effectively denying them access to the 50% bidding credit available to bidders in the Baseline speed tier in which they otherwise could bid.”
Rather than the earth station siting rules adopted in the spectrum frontiers order, the FCC should look at other percent population coverage limits for fixed satellite service (FSS) receivers in the 28 and 39 GHz bands, satellite operators told the eighth floor. In an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 14-177, the satellite interests said a 0.2 percent population coverage limit in densely populated areas, a fixed population limit in low- and medium-density areas, a 5 percent population coverage limit in the 39 GHz band and 10 percent limit in the 28 GHz band in the most sparely populated areas would encourage earth station siting in areas of low value to upper microwave flexible use system (UMFUS) operators while still "provid[ing] realistic opportunities" for earth station deployment in low-density pockets of high population license areas. They also pushed for better definition of transient population limits and axing rules limiting FSS operators to three earth stations per county for 28 GHz or per partial economic area for 39 GHz. They said using the 70/80/90 GHz band data base for UMFUS facilities would create an easy way for FSS operators to find areas of minimal UMFUS deployment. The filing recapped a meeting between an aide to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and EchoStar Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner, Inmarsat Director-Regulatory Giselle Creeser, SES Senior Legal and Regulatory Counsel Petra Vorwig, O3b regulatory counsel William Lewis, Intelsat Associate General Counsel Susan Crandall and Boeing outside counsel Bruce Olcott of Jones Day.
Iridium relies on "more invective than fact" in its latest filing in the back-and-forth between it and Ligado over possible Ligado broadband terrestrial network interference to Iridium's mobile satellite service (MSS), Ligado said in a statement Tuesday. Iridium, in a docket 11-109 filing Monday, said Ligado's attacks (see 1701170053) on Iridium's claims of a significant interference risk (see 1612140061) said it used methodologies "widely endorsed by industry and the FCC," while Ligado is misusing FCC ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) rules to try to dodge its obligations to protect MSS providers. Spectrum management principles and FCC rules make clear Ligado must mitigate any ATC interference to MSS operations, Iridium said. It said its analysis shows it's not viable to have terrestrial and satellite services in adjacent spectrum, with potential growth of either coming at the cost of the other, and without an agreement from Ligado to modify its ATC proposal to avoid interfering with Iridium in the adjacent band, the FCC should deny Ligado's ask to convert its 1627.5-1637.5 MHz operations to a terrestrial wireless broadband service. Ligado in its statement said the filing "ignores the substantial compromise that Ligado has put on the table, and suggests that this is more about competitive advantage than spectrum policy. Given that Iridium has twice said it 'does not oppose Ligado’s plans' and other proceedings have successfully shown that satellite and terrestrial can coexist in close proximity, it’s unfortunate that Iridium is not spending its resources discussing those solutions when they are so clearly present."
Hytera agreed to pay $62 million cash to acquire Norsat, a Canadian satellite company, Hytera said in a Monday news release. The deal is subject to customary conditions including shareholder and regulatory approval.
Driving “overall development” of Ultra HD delivery solutions for Fios subscribers in the U.S. is the aim of a “collaborative agreement” SES signed with Verizon, the satellite company said in a Monday announcement. It will supply Verizon with content to test from its “pre-packaged Ultra HD platform, which combines a growing lineup of Ultra HD channels and reception equipment in a cost-effective service delivered over scalable satellite capacity,” SES said. Since that platform is delivered “over dedicated satellite bandwidth,” it provides “a much higher quality viewer experience” compared with internet-streamed 4K offerings, “which can be susceptible to bottlenecks, buffering and network congestion,” SES said. “Home to nine linear Ultra HD channels, the platform provides the largest bouquet of Ultra HD programming available in North America.”
Hearst Television said a blackout of its stations on Dish Network may not end soon, among answers to FAQs it released Monday to viewers on its stations' websites. Dish saying the retransmission consent spat may end shortly is false, Hearst said. "Unfortunately, we can’t predict how long this impasse will last. In the past several years, DISH has had numerous outages that have lasted for months." Hearst said it "won't point fingers" after Dish said the TV-station owner is at fault, but "have you ever asked yourself why DISH seems to experience more blackouts and outages than other pay-TV distributors?" A Dish spokesman referred us to the company's previous letter to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. (see 1703200043) that said the interruption could end now if Hearst took the company's offer to take the same deal as DirecTV. Separately, AT&T's DirecTV ended a carriage dispute with Raycom (see 1703270017).