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).

Dish Network subscribers with Hopper 3 and 4K Joey boxes will be able to watch NBC’s coverage of the Rio Olympics in 4K on a new “dedicated linear channel” and via Dish’s “on-demand catalog,” albeit on a somewhat limited and delayed basis, Dish said in a Thursday announcement. The 4K coverage will be available on one-day delay and will include content from the swimming, track and field, basketball and judo competitions, it said. The men’s soccer final also will be available, as will the Aug. 21 closing ceremony and Rio “scenics,” it said. One event from the previous day’s competition will be shown daily and looped on channel 146 in three-hour intervals beginning Aug. 7, Dish said.

The inaugural launch of satellites in Iridium's Next constellation will be Sept. 19, a week later than anticipated due to delays with getting the launch rocket, said Iridium CEO Matthew Desch during the company's Q2 earnings call Thursday. Launch company SpaceX has assured that the brief delay "is a short-term issue; there shouldn't be issues for the second or subsequent launches," Desch said. SpaceX didn't comment. The second launch of the low earth orbit constellation is to be in late December, with five more launches expected about every 60 days afterward, he said, saying satellite manufacturer Orbital ATK ramped up its Next manufacturing "from low rate to high rate" in June. Two of the company's existing satellites ceased operations during the quarter, but that didn't affect the constellation's performance and availability, Desch said. "Our network is aging -- that's expected to happen," he said. "We're sending reinforcements very soon." Desch also said Iridium is lining up distributors for the Certus broadband service it expects to launch in Q2 2017 (see 1606070018). The satellite broadband service will compete with other L-band broadband offerings, with some Ku- and Ka-band broadband providers looking at using Certus as a complement to those services, Desch said. Revenue for the quarter was $109.2 million, up 7 percent, driven largely by government service and equipment sales, and net income was $26.9 million or 22 cents per share, Chief Financial Officer Tom Fitzpatrick said. Iridium stock closed Thursday at $8.99 down 2.6 percent.

A price war in wide-beam satellite services won't end anytime soon, Intelsat CEO Stephen Spengler said Wednesday during the company's Q2 earnings call. "There is still a lot of traditional wide-beam capacity coming into the marketplace and that is where the business is most competitive," Spengler said. "That is where there is less ability to differentiate services. Until supply and demand gets balanced in that area, it's going to be challenging." Spengler said the company's first Epic satellite is in service and its next, 33e, is scheduled for an August launch, and "wide-beam services will continue to be part of our infrastructure, will continue to be part of our solutions that we provide customers." He also said the company doesn't see a problem with its Epic platform cannibalizing its traditional wide-beam service, with only one customer moving from a wide-beam satellite to less capacity on 29e. In most transitions, Spengler said, "customers have opted for more overall volume of capacity, leading to an uptick in overall revenue." And 33e will have some transition services, but also a "significant amount of new business," he said. For the quarter, Intelsat revenue was $542 million, down 9 percent, due largely to pricing pressures and reductions in point-to-point applications such as trunking, Spengler said. Incremental capacity from the company's four 2016 satellite launches "is essential to offset the revenue pressures that we expect to shadow" the rest of the year, he said. Intelsat stock closed Wednesday at $2.36, down 5.2 percent.

When SES-15 launches in Q2 2017, it will carry a Federal Aviation Administration Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) payload for more-precise GPS tracking of aircraft, SES said in an FCC International Bureau filing Monday, asking the agency for authority for a new antenna at its Somis, California, teleport to communicate with the WAAS payload. SES said the satellite's WAAS data will go to WAAS-enabled GPS receivers. The company said the Somis earth station will be used as a ground uplink station, transmitting the WAAS signal to the satellite via extended C-band frequencies, with the data relayed to GPS receivers using L-band GPS frequencies.

Intelsat's Intelsat 36 is at the European Spaceport in French Guiana for launch, the satellite's designer and builder, Space Systems Loral (SSL), said in a news release Tuesday. Intelsat 36 will be used for direct-to-home TV service in Africa and TV program distribution services in South Asia, SSL said, saying it's the second satellite it has delivered to Intelsat this year. The satellite should go up sometime later this year, Intelsat said on its website.

Given the unresolved questions about Globalstar's planned LTE network, the FCC should launch a further rulemaking on opportunistic public use of Wi-Fi channel 14 in areas where Globalstar doesn't deploy terrestrial low-power services, said Blue Sky Information Services in a filing Tuesday in docket 13-213. In its filing, Blue Sky cited close to 20 questions it said need addressing, including how Globalstar's network operating system would work and be funded, how the company accurately can site its duplex user terminals without GPS receivers, whether the company has seen spectrum re-use benefits under the auxiliary terrestrial component (ATC) regime, and whether the FCC should use build-out deadlines to prevent spectrum warehousing. Blue Sky also said the FCC might want to revisit the original ATC authority rules and gating requirements and how gating rules subsequently were changed. "Perhaps the most prudent path forward would be to fix what was wrong the first time, before creating additional opportunities for failure a second time," Blue Sky said. Globalstar didn't comment.

Dish Network's blanket prohibition against workers soliciting in work areas during nonwork time "flies in the face of settled precedent" that makes it unlawful for employers to require prior approval to take part in activities protected by the National Labor Relations Act, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said in a brief (in Pacer) filed Monday with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The brief is in a pair of consolidated appellate cases, with Dish petitioning the court to review a board order issued in March against it and the NLRB cross-applying for enforcement of that order requiring the company to rehire a worker it fired and to rescind its solicitation policy. In its brief, the NLRB also rejected Dish's argument the agency must apply the special industry rules that cover retail establishments and permit more restrictive solicitation bans, since the Colorado call center at the heart of the complaint is not a retail establishment and there is no common area where employees and customers physically mix. And it said the evidence was clear the terminated worker was let go for soliciting coworkers to join a lawsuit regarding Dish's wage practices, contrary to Dish's claims the discharge was for putting a customer on silent mode. The NLRB dismissed Dish arguments the agency failed to show unlawful motivation, improperly relied on "generalized" animus against the worker and should have relied on Dish's business judgment for the firing. The agency said Dish mischaracterizes its analysis, which focused in part on the close timing between the employee's soliciting workers and his subsequent firing, and it isn't required to show additional animus beyond whatever animus was behind the contested action itself, such as animus against the employee personally. Dish didn't comment Tuesday.

Air Force One and other U.S. senior leader aircraft will have in-flight Internet and connectivity services through ViaSat, the satellite company said in a news release Monday announcing a $33 million U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency award. ViaSat said the contract covers various VIP and special mission aircraft and runs through May, with two six-month option periods beyond that.

Hispasat expects to launch its Hispasat 30W-6 satellite in Q2 or Q3 2017 to replace Hispasat 30W-4, the company said in an FCC International Bureau filing Friday, asking that the satellite be added to the Permitted Space Station List. In its application, Hispasat also asked for a declaratory ruling allowing the use of extended 13.75-14 GHz Ku capacity, 6725-7025/4500-4800 MHz and 13-13.25/11.2-11.45 GHz capacity on 30W-6, and for access to the U.S. market. Hispasat said 30W-6 will operate at 30 degrees west, where 30W-4 is now, and 30W-4 will relocate to another orbital slot or be used as a backup to 30W-6.