Among nontraditional space applications, the Earth/space sector -- infrastructure and services provided on Earth to facilitate use of space, such as launch services -- will continue to be the dominant business model in the near term, Northern Sky Research analyst Carolyn Belle blogged Monday. But the space/space and space/Earth segments will start being opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs as long as they can avoid already-saturated applications, NSR said. Space/space is services delivered in space, such as satellite servicing and space tourism, NSR said, and space/Earth is services delivered from space assets for use on Earth, it said. NSR said Earth/space includes nearly half of nontraditional space companies founded, but most of the funding for Earth/space companies went to SpaceX and Blue Origin. It said outside funding for space/space is limited, with Virgin Galactic and Bigelow Aerospace having the most investment.

Satellite broadband companies are asking the FCC to modify high-band spectrum rules, including revision of the population coverage limit for fixed satellite service (FSS) earth stations in the 28 and 39 GHz bands. In a docket 14-177 ex parte filing posted Monday, EchoStar, SES/O3b, OneWeb, Inmarsat and Intelsat recapped meetings where they backed doubling the population coverage limit from 0.1 percent of a population in an upper microwave flexible use license area to 0.2 percent in densely populated areas and going with a fixed population limit in low and medium density license areas, and a 5 percent or 10 percent population converge limit for sparsely populated areas. The companies said there needs to be better transient population limit definitions, elimination of rules capping FSS operators to three earth stations in any county for 28 GHz or partial economic area for 39 GHz. They advocated reserving the 48.2-50.2 GHz band as exclusively for FSS and giving FSS better and "more equitable" access to the 47.2-48.2, 50.4-51.4 and 51.4-52.4 GHz bands. The companies met with staffers from the International and Wireless bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology. The companies and other satellite operators have pushed for similar spectrum frontiers rules rewrites (see 1612160019).

Satellite IoT and machine-to-machine company Orbcomm bought Blue Tree Systems, an Irish transportation management services company serving North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, it said Monday.

In its earth stations in motion proceeding, the FCC should ax antenna pointing accuracy requirements for effective isotropic radiated power density limits, since that would give ESIM operators the choice of avoiding interference by reducing transmitted power or by narrowing the ESIM's transmit beam width, Hughes Network Systems representatives told International Bureau staffers, according to a docket 17-95 ex parte filing Friday. Hughes said the agency should cut "unnecessary" data logging requirements such as ESIM transmission logs and aggregate its ESIM rules into one rule part.

International Launch Services launched the SSL-built AsiaSat 9 satellite into orbit Friday on an ILS Proton, it said. It was ILS' third commercial launch this year, it said. The AsiaSat satellite will provide direct-to-home, video distribution, broadband and mobility services, and replace AsiaSat 4 with multiple C-, Ka- and Ku-band payloads, it said. The satellite will orbit at 122 degrees east and serve Asia.

Globalstar and IPmotion are starting a commercial mobile satellite service, Globalstar Japan, that will offer a variety of voice, data, asset monitoring, tracking and emergency capabilities aimed at consumer, enterprise and government customers, they said Friday. They said Globalstar expects to receive type certification to sell a variety of its products in Japan in coming weeks.

After announcing a deal with Fox to deliver select NCAA college football games in 4K (see 1709210022), Dish Network continued filling its Ultra HD content palette Friday, announcing a multiroom 4K Netflix streaming via its flagship Joey set-top box. The box connected to a Dish Hopper 3 DVR can support six 4K Joey STBs, bringing the number of supported 4K TVs to seven, Dish said. Users can find 4K content, identifiable by “4K” or “UHD,” via the Netflix app on the Dish remote control or in the programming guide, it said. The 4K streaming is exclusive to Netflix since Dish doesn’t offer Amazon apps on its set-tops, a Dish spokeswoman said.

The ITU constitution is all about collective sharing and protection of spectrum, but rules on non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite systems violate those fundamentals, Thomas Choi, CEO of satellite operator ABS, blogged Friday on LinkedIn. A few companies control almost all C- and Ku-band spectrum in the geostationary arc, boxing out new operators and emerging nations, and a second round of "this spectrum imperialism" is coming with NGSO constellations, Choi said. Rules have some NGSO operators rushing to launch a handful of satellites before ITU filings expire to try to cement ITU priority to NGSO spectrum in the Ka- and Ku-bands, and the rules need to be addressed at the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19), Choi said. He said NGSO coordination is a major technical challenge and regardless of exclusivity and forced sharing issues, it's impractical that more than a few NGSO systems can share bands globally. Deep-pocketed companies from richer nations "stand to lock up the usable frequencies in the NGSO arc," and developing countries "will find themselves once again ‘locked out’ of the exclusive club of spectrum owning nations." Choi said WRC-19 regulation changes should include stipulations NGSO systems that lack landing rights in any specific country should design systems to shut off beams when they cross over nations where they lack licenses, if such requests are made by that nation.

Space & Satellite Professionals International is the new name for the former Society of Satellite Professionals, it said Thursday. It said the name change reflects an expanded mission with the satellite industry expanding into new businesses and markets. It also reflects expanded membership, it said, with companies such as Blue Origin, DigitalGlobe, Kymeta, Planet and SpaceX joining in the past year.

Raycom Media and DirecTV signed a carriage agreement that will keep Raycom's 54 stations on the direct broadcast satellite system, Raycom said Wednesday.