In a regulatory and legal battle with GPS companies, LightSquared now is highlighting the decline of the GPS and Personal Navigation Device (PND) industry. Company senior adviser Reed Hundt met with FCC front-office Office of Strategic Planning & Policy Analysis, Wireless, General Counsel, Office of Engineering & Technology and International Bureau staff to discuss GPS market data, the company said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 12-340. "Consumers today are overwhelmingly using smartphones for general location and navigation use cases," meaning PND sales are dropping and the installed base is expected by 2020 to be half of what it is today, the company said. Meanwhile, GPS units used in high-precision agriculture and construction make up a small portion of the overall installed base, and companies increasingly are turning to other options such as internal measure units and real-time kinetics, LightSquared said. Garmin dominates the PND market, while John Deere and Trimble are the major players in the use of GPS for high-precision agriculture and construction, and LightSquared's plans for a ground-and-satellite-based LTE broadband network have been opposed by the three over concerns of interference with the Global Navigation Satellite Service bandwidth used by the GPS companies (see 1507010018). Regardless of whether LightSquared is able to reach a settlement with the GPS companies, "the nation cannot afford to risk interference that could debilitate the reception and/or accuracy of GPS signals used for public safety operations," National Public Safety Telecommunications Council Chairman Ralph Haller said in a letter to the FCC posted Wednesday.

ViaSat is seeking FCC approval for its new FT22225 mobile earth terminals. In a filing Wednesday with the International Bureau, the company said it plans up to 100,000 terminals to communicate in the L-band with LightSquared's SkyTerra-1 satellite and to provide real-time position tracking and remote-asset management and operation for such applications as oil and gas stream monitoring and control, water treatment and distribution monitoring and control, and ATM kiosk operation.

Iridium Communications' planned Next constellation hit a delay, the company said Thursday, as a subsystem supplier is reworking hardware related to Ka-band satellite links. That puts off the initial launch of the Next constellation by two months, to December, Iridium said. Iridium Next -- which promises more capacity than the company's current satellite network -- is expected to be fully deployed in 2017, the company said.

Eutelsat is partnering with Starburst Accelerator -- an aerospace-centric startup incubator in Paris -- the satellite company said Wednesday. Eutelsat said it would help in developing services, applications and technologies, and also be part of the accelerator selection committee.

LightSquared is eyeing a Dec. 15 exit from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That's the date set in a court order approved Tuesday by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman in Manhattan for payment to Moelis & Co., the financial adviser and investment banker to the satellite company in its 3-year-old Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The order signs off on paying Moelis $32.5 million in capital transaction fees and restructuring fees on the effective date of LightSquared's plan for emergence from bankruptcy, as long as the plan is consummated by Dec. 15. If the plan isn't consummated by then, Moelis doesn't receive the $32.5 million -- its reduced transaction fee -- but it then has the right to seek full repayment of the $63.8 million for which Moelis may be eligible.

Don't expect to see Sirius XM enter the streaming audio marketplace anytime soon, Sirius executives said Tuesday. While Sirius has looked into Internet-based music streaming services, "None of them are making money," Chief Financial Officer David Frear said Tuesday during a conference call with analysts on its financial results. While Sirius has better relationships with record labels after its $210 million settlement last month on unpaid royalties (see 1506260048), the company isn't interested in trying to leverage that into global streaming licenses, CEO Jim Meyer said. "Just going global is not worth doing if you cannot make money on it," Frear said.

The Connect America Fund Phase II buildout might require "satellite-specific standards" for high-cost areas, Adtran said in an ex parte presentation filed Monday in docket 10-90. The broadband equipment maker has been jousting with Hughes Network Systems over Hughes-proposed CAF standards that Adtran said could result in "second class" broadband (see 1507240016). Adtran Counsel Stephen Goodman, in a phone call with Wireline Bureau representatives, said the company opposes any "across-the-board relaxation" of technical standards, but it also sees the possibility of varying standards for certain areas covered by the Remote Area Fund.

SpaceX -- to be commended for providing some information about its test satellite proposal -- still needs to clarify some technical issues on potential frequency interference and collision with others' satellites, Intelsat said in a response filed Friday in file 0356-EX-PL-2015 with the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. SpaceX plans to launch a series of test satellites starting next year in the first step to building a low earth orbit constellation to provide a global broadband service. Intelsat has an informal objection to the experimental license needed (see 1507230020). While information filed last week with the OET clears up some issues, Intelsat said, it still needs details on such issues as the transmit earth station's minimum antenna diameter and associated side-lobe pattern. Intelsat said it also had questions about how SpaceX would adjust satellite orbits to avoid close proximity to inactive space objects, what sort of back-up tracking systems the satellites would have in case the active system fails, and how long SpaceX intends to monitor its satellites.

Generally lowering the Connect America Fund Phase II standards would create "second class" broadband in a disservice to the public, Adtran said in a comment posted Friday in FCC docket 10-90. Adtran's submission was the latest in a back-and-forth between it and Hughes Network Systems on CAF standards, including a filing Monday by the satellite company indicating the 100 GB per month data usage allowance could preclude satellite broadband operators from taking part (see 1507220049). A lesser allowance for satellite operators "is likely to limit the usefulness of satellite broadband for video streaming, which is the dominant use of the Internet presently," Adtran said. The company repeated its previous arguments against Hughes' proposed R-Factor score and pushed for its own proposed higher R-Factor score -- R-Factor being a measure of VoIP call quality (see 1506150019).

Thomson Video Networks launched its SingleFeed solution for the company's NetProcessor 9030/40 multiplexing and transport system and RD1100 receiver/descrambler, the company said in a Thursday news release. SingleFeed's aim is for easier satellite distribution of single frequency network multiplexes by terrestrial headend operators, it said.