FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said he's still talking with Globalstar about its proposed broadband terrestrial low-power service, during a post-commissioner meeting news conference. He said he hasn't made any decisions and has no time frame to decide. The company in an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 13-213 recapped a phone call between O'Rielly aide Erin McGrath and Globalstar consultant and ex-Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth in which he pushed for "an expeditious resolution to any outstanding issues in this proceeding." O'Rielly's office has been involved in multiple Globalstar ex parte meetings in recent weeks about its application (see 1609080073, 1609020044 and 1608240063).

Lockheed Martin received a $395 million Air Force contract for producing the ninth and 10th GPS III satellites, the company said in a news release Wednesday. The first eight satellites are under contract in production at Lockheed Martin's GPS III Processing Facility in Colorado, it said, with the first satellite to be delivered to the Air Force later this year. The latest production contract covers both full production and long-lead items, Lockheed Martin said.

Maritime mobility company Telenor Maritime wants permission to operate up to 25 Sea Tel Model 9711 and Sea Tel 6012 earth station onboard vessel (ESV) terminals, it said in an FCC International Bureau ESV blanket license application filed Tuesday. Telenor said the terminals will operate in the Ku-band, with the 9711 terminals also operating in the C-band. In a separate IB filing, Telenor also said it wanted a 60-day special temporary authority to operate ESV terminals on U.S. and foreign-registered vessels in U.S. and international waters. The ESV terminals would connect with the SES-4 and NSS-7 satellites, it said, saying the STA would let it do link performance evaluation and onboard frequency band switch-over capability assessment before the company begins its long-term commercial operations.

Due to wildfires near Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, leading to unforeseen delays, Lockheed Martin is seeking extension of its special temporary authority to support launch and deployment of the WorldView-4 satellite, it said in an FCC Office of Engineering & Technology STA filing Monday. The launch of the earth observation satellite for DigitalGlobe had been expected Sept. 15, but it's unclear the launch will happen before the Oct. 20 expiration of the current STA, the company said, seeking a 30-day extension to Nov. 20.

Iridium is lobbying the FCC about the big risks it sees of interference from Ligado's planned terrestrial low-power service, while Ligado is asking the agency to make public the supposed basis of those worries. In an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 11-109, Iridium recapped meetings Maureen McLaughlin, vice president-public policy, had with aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Mike O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel on its technical paper submitted this month in which Iridium argued Ligado's LTE deployment plans would cause too-high out-of-band-emissions (OOBE) to its current system and forthcoming Next constellation (see 1609020029). Saying it doesn't oppose Ligado's plans per se, Iridium said minus some interference agreement being worked out with Ligado, the FCC needs to impose on any Ligado approvals conditions that include sufficient interference protections. Those conditions should reduce OOBE emissions from Ligado's mobile terminals into Iridium's use of 1617.775-1626.5 MHz and could include exclusion zones that prohibit use of Ligado user terminals around airport facilities to protect aviation satellite communication services, Iridium said. Ligado, in a filing in the same docket Tuesday, pointed to that technical paper and argued against the redactions, saying any confidentiality interest in the redacted information "is far outweighed by the public interest in subjecting Iridium's claims to critical analysis." Ligado also called it "critical" that it and other parties in the proceeding be able to fully assess the Iridium analysis and underlying data. It said Iridium denied a Ligado request to provide the full analysis and instead told the satellite company to seek it from the FCC, potentially under a protective order. Ligado said that if the agency decided some part of that analysis shouldn't be made public, the commission at the least needs to grant Ligado and other parties access to the full analysis subject to protections. "The FCC has a well-established process for reviewing requests for confidentiality of commercially sensitive information, which Iridium has followed," Iridium emailed us. "We have every confidence in the Commission’s staff’s ability to handle the request. Iridium has no objection to Ligado gaining access to the information through a Protective Order established by the Commission."

U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam of San Francisco rejected DirecTV's motions for partial summary judgment in two actions brought by the FTC. In an order (in Pacer) Friday, Gilliam said DirecTV's evidence of screenshots of its website doesn't establish the absence of a genuine dispute over allegations it violated the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act on forms of internet marketing. He said the FTC doesn't have an obligation in its opposition to summary judgment to present evidence in opposition: "While the contents of the website do not appear to be disputed, the inferences to be drawn from those contents are vigorously disputed." The judge also said the court can't conclude that DirecTV's disclosures about premium channel promotion were adequate and sufficiently conspicuous and clear -- which the FTC is challenging in its lawsuit against DirecTV (see 1503110042). The FTC separately is seeking partial summary judgment on some of its claims (see 1609230003). Gilliam also approved an FTC motion for sealing of some exhibits containing sensitive business information. AT&T, which now owns DirecTV, on Monday said it "ensure[s] that all of our customers receive full information, multiple times, to allow them to make informed decisions about DirecTV services" and that it "will continue to vigorously defend against these allegations."

The global satellite broadband communication in public safety market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of more than 9 percent through 2020, Technavio said in a news release Friday. Technavio said public health use of public safety-based satellite broadband communications was a $280 million market in 2015 and should reach $520.6 million by 2020, emergency relief center use was a $109.9 million market expected to hit $174.4 million by 2020, and law enforcement use was an $830.1 million market expected to reach $1.19 billion by 2020.

The Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act mandates material contractual terms be displayed clearly, making the U.S. District Court in San Francisco well within its rights to decide on the clarity and conspicuousness of DirecTV's website disclosures based on a review of the site, the FTC said Thursday in a motion (in Pacer) for partial summary judgment on its claims under ROSCA and on DirecTV's affirmative defenses. The agency is suing the direct broadcast satellite company for allegedly not properly communicating early cancellation fee terms to subscribers (see 1503110042). The FTC motion said it's clear DirecTV failed to disclose the material terms of its premium channel negative option in a conspicuous fashion. It also said the claim behind DirecTV's affirmative defense claims is that the company invited the FTC to resolve its investigation by joining a settlement negotiation with several states also pursuing similar claims against it, but the agency opted not to and then years later "sprung to sue DirecTV for that very same conduct covered in those multistate settlement terms." But the FTC said DirecTV's only basis for those claims is "unsupported conjecture and conclusory opinions" and it was never earnestly invited into the multistate settlement negotiations. It said there's no evidence of affirmative misconduct or unreasonable delay on the agency's part that would then be the basis of the affirmative defenses. AT&T, which now owns DirecTV, didn't comment Friday.

DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket itself isn't the problem, but the league/DirecTV agreements that restrain competition with Sunday Ticket and the telecasts it bundles are problematic, plaintiffs said Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in an opposition (in Pacer) to the NFL defendants' motion to dismiss. The NFL and DirecTV jointly agreed to limit the number of broadcasts Sundays to three games, making consumers buy the Sunday Ticket bundle if they want to watch more/other games, said buyers of Sunday Ticket whose 27 separate class-action lawsuits were consolidated in May (see 1605240012). Defendants made out-of-market telecasts available only through DirecTV, preventing subscribers to other pay-TV services from having any access, the plaintiffs said, saying the result is Sunday Ticket pricing being far higher than any other major sports league subscription service. The NFL is the only major U.S. pro sports league selling its out-of-market package exclusively through a single multichannel video programming distributor, plaintiffs said. Such exclusivity also limits the competition NFL telecasts would face otherwise, letting broadcasters get higher advertising profits and distribution fees, said the plaintiffs, who are alleging DirecTV and the NFL broke antitrust laws (see 1512300027). There was similar class-action litigation against Major League Baseball and the NHL (see 1601210032). Sunday Ticket was first offered in the 1990s, and has had legal and regulatory challenges every few years, one lawyer who has done work for the NFL told us. DirecTV in a motion (in Pacer) to compel arbitration and stay proceedings last month argued the plaintiffs committed via their customer agreements to arbitrate disputes with DirecTV and should be ordered to do so. Far from being "supra-competitive" in its pricing, DirecTV has a distribution agreement that's exactly the type of competition via exclusive contracts that antitrust laws encourage, it said. Judge Beverly O'Connell in an order Friday gave the plaintiffs an Oct. 3 deadline for filing a memorandum in opposition. The NFL defendants, in a motion (in Pacer) to dismiss in August, said the plaintiffs show no facts to bolster the claim of anticompetitive effects and to identify any alternative arrangement that would be more competitive.

Intelsat wants to drift its Intelsat 5 satellite from 157 degrees east to 59.9 degrees east and operate it there temporarily in the C- and Ku-bands. In an FCC International Bureau application filed Wednesday, the company said the relocation -- needed to meet a potential service demand -- will start on or after Dec. 1, and will be at its new home by March.