The National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing has been painted "a very inaccurate picture of Ligado's current proposal," the company said in a letter to Excom posted Thursday in FCC docket 11-109. The letter from Ligado CEO Doug Smith, plus one from Dennis Roberson of Ligado consultant Roberson and Associates, were in response to a letter to Excom from the chairman of the Space-Based PNT Advisory Board (PNTAB) they said inaccurately said Ligado's LTE plans aren't substantially different from what Ligado as LightSquared previously proposed and which Excom rejected in 2012. The power levels and bands to be utilized are considerably different, Smith said, saying Ligado's plans don't face objections from major GPS companies, unlike the previous iteration of the LTE plan under LightSquared. The PNTAB letter also falsely asserts Ligado's system will be high-power, will include terrestrial use of frequencies just below GPS and will share spectrum with GPS, he said. Roberson said the PNTAB letter about Ligado coexistence with GPS ignores testing Roberson did to demonstrate their compatibility. PNTAB Chairman John Stenbit didn't comment.

Set-top box maker HTV International wants the piracy litigation HTVI faces moved from U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, to U.S. District Court in Los Angeles "for the convenience of witnesses, parties, as well as the interest of justice," it said Monday in a request (in Pacer) for a pre-motion hearing on its planned motion to change venue. HTVI said it has no employees or operations in the U.S. and none of the parties have any relationship to the Eastern District of New York. It said the same plaintiffs suing it for pirating CCTV and TVB TV programming (see 1604180064) -- Dish Network and broadcasters China Central TV (CCTV) and TVB Holdings -- have a similar lawsuit against Create New Technology HK filed in the Los Angeles court on alleged piracy via that company's TVpad set-top.

With $3.5 billion cash on hand, Dish Network undeniably has the ability to pay the $900 million civil penalty requested by the U.S. for illegal telemarketing activities, said the FTC and DOJ in a motion (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Illinois, asking to admit the satellite company's current financial statements. In the motion, the federal agencies -- which along with four states have brought robocall allegations against Dish (see 0903260144) -- pointed to Dish's most-recent quarterly earnings and said those figures are admissible as relevant evidence to the question of Dish's ability to pay the civil penalty since they seem to contradict previous trial testimony by the company. "Dish is either dissembling to the SEC and the public now or it was dissembling to the Court in January," the federal agencies said. Dish didn't comment.

Eutelsat is owed $72.5 million in "a simple and straightforward breach of guaranty case" in its lawsuit against Bras Trading, the satellite company said in a motion (in Pacer) for summary judgment Monday in U.S. District Court in Miami. Eutelsat sued Bras in 2015, alleging it broke its promise to guarantee its subsidiary J C P Melo Telecomunicacoes' payments to Eutelsat for satellite broadband capacity. Bras argued in court documents that Eutelsat provided only some of the services for which it billed JCP, breaching the contract first by overbilling. In its motion, Eutelsat said Bras' "numerous, meritless affirmative defenses" are unsupported by evidence or legally insufficient and don't preclude summary judgment.

Iridium received an FCC green light for its Next constellation, with the International Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology Monday approving the company's 2013 application to modify its nongeostationary mobile satellite service license to allow the new constellation. In the order issued Monday, the FCC said the new constellation will operate in the same orbital parameters and transmit on the same frequency bands, and will be equipped to track ships and aircraft through an automatic dependent surveillance broadcast receiver and a receiver for maritime automatic identification system messages. Inmarsat, SES and ViaSat voiced concern about Iridium sharing the 29.25-29.3 GHz band with co-primary geostationary fixed satellite service operations, but the FCC said sharing demonstrations weren't necessary since Next will operate with the same feeder-link stations authorized for its current satellites. The Committee on Radio Astronomy Frequencies and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory objected to the protection levels and coordination plan Iridium submitted for its use of 1617.775-1626.5 MHz, but Iridium came up "with good proposal and a good way forward," one FCC official told us Tuesday. The company now plans to shift traffic from satellites in view of radio astronomy service sites to adjacent satellites -- which should protect radio astronomy observations from interference, the FCC said in its order. Iridium said last month the first Next launch will be Sept. 19, with the entire constellation to be in orbit by the end of 2017 (see 1607280006).

Gogo wants to tie as many as 200 earth stations aboard aircraft (ESAA) to the Astra 4A satellite. In an FCC International Bureau filing Friday, Gogo asked for special temporary authority (STA) to let it start service to a new fleet customer by using Astra 4A. The company said it's working on an application to modify its ESAA license to add new satellites. It also said it would use Astra 4A capacity to provide coverage in Europe.

As part of Lionsgate's planned $4.4 billion buy of Starz (see 1606300069), the acquirer is asking for FCC approval of transfer control of Starz's Starz Entertainment subsidiary, which holds its transmit/receive earth station authorizations to Orion Arm Holding, a Lionsgate subsidiary. In an FCC International Bureau filing Friday, the company said Orion Arm Holding will merge with Starz as part of the deal, with Starz continuing as the surviving entity, thus making Starz and Starz Entertainment indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. Lionsgate said it expects to close the deal by year's end.

Globalstar consultant and ex-FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth met with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly to push for "a timely resolution" to Globalstar's terrestrial low-power broadband system plans before the agency, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 13-213. O'Rielly and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn remain question marks on the Globalstar draft order that had seen "no" votes by Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel (see 1607140049).

Space Systems Loral will build the SXM-7 and SXM-8 satellites for Sirius XM, SSL said in a news release Thursday. The S-band satellites will replace Sirius XM's XM-3 and XM-4 satellites in 2019 and 2020, SSL said, noting it has built seven satellites for Sirius XM.

The FCC Media Bureau signed off on Dish Network's request that the agency drop its retransmission complaint against Sinclair Broadcast, said a Media Bureau filing Friday in docket 12-1. The two late last year ended a retransmission dispute and signed a retrans consent agreement that had Dish dropping the retrans complaint it brought in August against Sinclair (see 1512030018).