In-flight connectivity could be a $130 billion market globally within 20 years, representing $30 billion additional revenue for airlines by 2035, said a London School of Economics and Political Science study commissioned by Inmarsat, the company said Tuesday. It said in-flight connectivity could provide $1 billion revenue for airlines by 2018, with most coming from broadband access, with advertising, e-commerce and premium content adding to that total. It said by 2035, broadband access revenue could hit $15.9 billion, with e-commerce another $6.8 billion and ads $6 billion. The LSE study said roughly 53 of the estimated 5,000 airlines worldwide offer in-flight connectivity, but it will be ubiquitous by 2035.
Instead of including the 29.25-29.3 GHz band as spectrum available for earth stations in motion, the agency should wait until industry someday develops methods for creating exclusion zones that would protect Iridium earth stations from ESIMs, Iridium told FCC International Bureau staffers, said a filing Monday in docket 17-95. It said the exclusion zone boundary issue is complicated by the fact the location and number of geostationary orbit ESIM terminals -- especially those for earth stations aboard aircraft -- will change, sometimes constantly.
The FCC released a non-geostationary orbit satellite rules update order Wednesday, approved the previous day by the commissioners (see 1709260035). The final order was largely identical to the draft, though it also said when it comes to NGSO sharing with non-satellite platforms, the agency didn't see a basis in the record for initiating a proceeding. The FCC also said in the final order it would require NGSO fixed satellite service operators go through ITU review of their equivalent power flux density demonstrations and then provide the commission with the data files.
The global satellite machine-to-machine and IoT market should reach $2.9 billion in annual retail revenue by 2026, Northern Sky Research said Tuesday. NSR said land tracking, and particularly cargo tracking, likely will be the most profitable and competitive segment. It said most M2M and IoT services need only low bandwidth currently, but some verticals over the next decade will need additional bandwidth requirements for big data analysis, engine telematics and live data streaming, and those could be targeted by new mobile satellite service constellations. Low bandwidth and latency insensitive applications will be the focus of small satellite constellations, it said, as the business case for smallsat IoT-exclusive constellations is a question mark.
ViaSat and Boeing are starting construction, integration and testing of what are to be the first two ViaSat-3 satellites, they said Monday. ViaSat completed critical design review milestones for the ViaSat-3 class, they said. The ViaSat-3 payload is being designed and built by ViaSat, and Boeing is building the all-electric propulsion platform, which will be delivered to ViaSat's satellite integration facility for installation and testing, they said. Then the completed payload module will be sent back to Boeing for further testing for launch and operational readiness.
The National Labor Relations Board didn't apply the right legal standards and ignored its own precedent when it found Dish Network employee arbitration agreement's confidentiality provision violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the company said in a docket 17-60368 brief (in Pacer) filed Friday with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It said NLRB improperly concluded a one-time oral command to a worker to keep a workplace investigation private was an NLRA violation despite the board also concluding Dish didn't have any workplace rule to that effect. The company is appealing an April 13 NLRB decision on a complaint brought by a Colorado call center worker who was suspended for alleged workplace policy violations and subsequently fired. The NLRB didn't comment Monday.
SiriusXM completed its $480 million “strategic investment” to buy 19 percent of Pandora’s stock (see 1706090005), the satellite radio service said in a Friday announcement. SiriusXM Chairman Greg Maffei, CEO Jim Meyer and Chief Financial Officer David Frear will take seats on the Pandora board and Maffei will become Pandora chairman, the company said. The closing also marks Elizabeth Nelson’s departure from the Pandora board, which now has nine seats, it said.
SiriusXM-Pandora faces a “fairly benign” competitive landscape, Macquarie Capital's Amy Yong wrote investors Wednesday. Competitor promotions were minimal in Q3, while documents on Spotify’s pending initial public offering show 60 million-plus subscribers and 140 million-plus active users, the analyst said. Pandora gave away three free months of Premium through T-Mobile’s Tuesday customer appreciation giveaways, and is the Apple Store's top-grossing app, she said. Cross-pollination means Pandora leveraging SiriusXM content, she noted. Sirius could benefit from a Hurricane Harvey effect as damaged vehicles will drive an upswing in new car sales (see 1709140057 and 1709140044), she said. New Pandora CEO Roger Lynch brings “built and scaled Sling TV under a tight, cost-controlled environment,” she said.
Dish Network subscribers who own Hopper 3 set-tops can view “select” college football games this season from Fox Sports’ FS1 channel 540 live in 4K beginning with Saturday’s Oklahoma-Baylor matchup, Dish said in a Thursday announcement. Dish has offered 4K-ready set-tops for three years, “and 4K TV market share is anticipated to exceed one-in-four U.S. households by the end of 2017,” said Chief Technology Officer Vivek Khemka. The “missing element” has been native 4K programming, he said. The move is part of a “broader agreement” with Fox that will include future 4K coverage of college basketball, Major League Baseball and NASCAR racing, said Dish.
Rural telcos said satellite broadband "is slower and more expensive than the worst broadband provided by landline services" in most urban and many rural areas. FCC data confirmed "satellite latency is 20 times greater" than "typical terrestrial broadband services," said a filing Wednesday in docket 10-90 by Great Plains Communications, Consolidated Companies of Nebraska, Vantage Point Solutions and former Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth on a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. They said geostationary satellite latency cannot be improved. "Monthly capacity constraints placed on a customer could be exhausted in only a few hours of heavy usage," the filing said. "Satellite broadband is not well positioned to meet the current and future consumer demands for critical services such as eHealth, distance education, and many business services." The Satellite Industry Association touted satellite broadband as providing robust data speeds able to "scale more quickly and efficiently than terrestrial networks" (see 1709200042).