DirecTV added 22 new out-of-home (OOH) live streaming channels to DirecTV Everywhere, it said in a news release Tuesday. The channels from OWN, Smithsonian, Turner Broadcasting, Univision, Viacom and others, bring its OOH offering to almost 90 live streaming channels. Customers can watch programming from multiple devices, it said.

Bluetooth had asked Globalstar to run its terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) demonstration at the FCC at 20 decibel-milliwatts (dBm), instead of the maximum 28 dBm, said Barbee Ponder, Globalstar general counsel, in an interview at the satellite week conference in Washington. “We ran at the power limit one would expect to see in an indoor environment,” he said. “We could run at 28, it just wasn’t a real-world deployment in that scenario.” The Belkin access point CableLabs used in its test is “notoriously unstable,” Ponder said. The commission didn’t request additional demos, he said. “Their questions were satisfied” after the demo, he said. Additional lab work will soon be conducted at the commission to characterize the TLPS access points, and measure its power limits and its emissions profile, he said. Globalstar plans to have more demos to show real-world deployment of TLPS, he said. CableLabs and others have criticized the testing (see 1503130015).

GAO urged Congress to consider assessing statutory limits on address data to encourage creation of a national address database, said a report released Monday. The Office of Management and Budget should increase its oversight of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and federal agency initiatives, GAO said. Agencies agreed with the recommendations and showed implementation plans, it said. The estimated geospatial dataset investment by federal agencies and state governments is billions of dollars, but this is understated since agencies don't always track such investments, including billions spent on earth-observing satellites that produce a large amount of geospatial data, GAO said. The FGDC and OMB created an initiative where agencies will annually identify and report geospatial-related investments, as part of the FY 2017 budget process, it said. The data are sometimes collected multiple times by different entities, and statutory restrictions that agencies face on the sharing of certain federal address data can restrict data sharing, it said. FGDC initiated plans to coordinate geospatial data collection with state governments, but state officials GAO contacted aren't satisfied with the efforts, it said. Eight of the committee's 32 member agencies have started registering with the clearinghouse 59 percent of the geospatial data they view as critical, GAO said. "There will continue to be duplicative efforts to obtain and maintain these data at every level of government," until there is effective coordination among national spatial data infrastructure, GAO said.

ViaSat affiliate ViaSat Technologies signed a credit agreement for a $525 million direct loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank for the ViaSat-2 high-capacity Ka-band communications satellite, ViaSat said in a news release Thursday. ViaSat Technologies will use the loan to finance about 85 percent of construction, insurance and launch for ViaSat-2 and exposure fees for the facility, it said. ViaSat-2, being manufactured by Boeing, will expand coverage for more than 40 countries in North America, Central America, the Caribbean and South America, and aeronautical and maritime routes between Europe and North America, it said. The satellite will double the bandwidth of ViaSat-1 and will be launched by SpaceX in late summer 2016, it said.

Consumer Watchdog hails the FTC’s deceptive advertising lawsuit against DirecTV (see 1503110042) and wants the FCC to require that DirecTV “cease its anti-consumer policies as a condition” of approving AT&T’s buy of it, the California nonprofit said Friday. Consumer Watchdog sued DirecTV on similar allegations in 2008 in a case that’s still pending in a California appellate court. Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, has said the complaint against DirecTV “has nothing to do” with any regulatory “evaluation” of AT&T’s planned buy of DirecTV, “and I have no comment on how it might affect it.” U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James in San Francisco has assigned the FTC’s complaint to the court’s “Alternative Dispute Resolution Multi-Option Program,” her March 12 scheduling order showed. The program's goal “is early, cost-effective and fair resolution of civil cases” through one of several “processes,” including arbitration or a settlement conference with a magistrate judge, the court’s website shows. James’ scheduling order sets a May 21 deadline for ADR process selection, to be followed by a June 11 initial case management conference.

TVfreedom.org weighed in with a statement Thursday backing the FTC in its allegations in a federal complaint that DirecTV engaged in deceptive advertising practices since 2007 (see 1503110042). “DirecTV's failure to clearly disclose the terms and prices customers would pay as part of contract agreements is unacceptable,” the group said. “It further demonstrates that greater regulatory oversight is needed to address these market failures. The FTC is right to step in.” TVfreedom.org and TV broadcasters have long supported “more transparent billing practices by all pay-TV companies,” hailing Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., for “spearheading efforts last year to shine a spotlight on this questionable behavior,” the group said. McCaskill tried unsuccessfully last year to organize a hearing on pay-TV billing practices when she chaired the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee (see 1412030047). McCaskill, now ranking member on the Senate Investigations Subcommittee, issued a statement of her own Wednesday, backing the FTC for "finally taking a swing for consumers." According to TVfreedom.org, Congress “has a unique opportunity to promote greater transparency and accountability in the video marketplace through its update of the Communications Act and help thwart the on-going consumer abuse by America's pay-TV industry. Promoting greater transparency and fairness to existing pay-TV business and billing practices is a vital and core consumer protection that should be incorporated into any proposed reform legislation." DirecTV has called the FTC’s allegations “flat-out wrong,” and vowed to “vigorously defend ourselves, for as long as it takes.” DirecTV spokesman Robert Mercer declined comment Thursday on the TVfreedom.org statement, as did NCTA spokesman Brian Dietz on the TVfreedom.org allegation that there's "on-going consumer abuse" in the pay-TV industry.

Gilat Satellite Networks partnered with Intelsat to enable rapid deployment for mobile network operators to quickly expand 2G/3G services to underserved regions of the world, it said in a news release Thursday. Gilat's CellEdge small-cell-over-satellite solution will be combined with Intelsat's global satellite coverage and IntelsatOne terrestrial infrastructure, it said. RuralCom's thousand-mile Alaska Highway and British Columbia Coast cellular network is an example of Gilat's and Intelsat's partnership, it said. Gilat and Intelsat let RuralCom expand its network and subscriber base at a reduced capital expenditure base level, it said.

Sky-Stream FZ renewed capacity on SES’s NSS-6 satellite and added capacity for NSS-12 to deploy very small aperture terminal networks in the Middle East, SES said in a news release Wednesday. It said Sky-Stream will use Ku-band capacity on NSS-6 at 95 degrees east and NSS-12 at 57 degrees east.

L-3 Communication Systems-West was selected by Laser Light Communications as a contractor to provide its StarEdge ground node systems for Laser Light's SpaceCable network, L-3 said in a news release Tuesday. The network will be an all-optical commercial satellite system with global hybrid communications infrastructure, L-3 said. Free space optics, or lasers, transmit data 100 times faster than conventional radio frequency satellite systems, it said. SpaceCable will deliver fiber-equivalent bandwidth connections at low operating costs, it said. L-3's technology will manage multiple StarEdge ground node locations to limit network congestion slowdowns, outages or weather interruptions, it said. The network is scheduled to be deployed in late 2017, L-3 said.

Globalstar’s proposed authenticated Wi-Fi terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) wouldn’t interfere with neighboring Wi-Fi networks at 2.4 GHz and could relieve congestion, Guggenheim Securities analyst Paul Gallant said in a note Wednesday. Globalstar released results of its TLPS demonstration at the FCC Technology Experience Center on March 6 and 9. The test was conducted by test lab AT4 Wireless, venture fund Jarvinian Ventures and technology consultant Roberson & Associates, Globalstar said. “American consumers will benefit significantly from the provision of TLPS across 22 megahertz of additional broadband spectrum in the 2.4 GHz band,” it said in an ex parte notice posted Wednesday in docket 13-213. TLPS works well with Wi-Fi operations on IEEE 802.11 channel 11 and Bluetooth device operations in the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical band at 2400 to 2483.5 MHz, it said. Globalstar will likely win FCC approval in the first half of 2015, Gallant said. The commission asked for a technical demonstration at a Feb. 6 roundtable to address engineering concerns, and Globalstar, Bluetooth, NCTA and the Wi-Fi Alliance developed joint test plans at the commission on March 6 and 9, he said. Opponents of the system might file their own analysis of the tests, he said. The TLPS test created “meaningful improvement in existing Wi-Fi,” including a 40 percent increase in overall throughput when Wi-Fi traffic is spread across TLPS, Gallant said. “Greater congestion relief is likely in a noisier, real-world environment with many Wi-Fi access points contending for Wi-Fi channels.” Gerst Capital filed an opposition comment, questioning if any device operating on Wi-Fi Channel 14 was subject to Part 15.247 testing, to measure emissions limits at 2495 MHz instead of 2483.5 MHz. Deploying an inferior legacy standard isn't a viable option for TLPS, said manager of Gerst Capital Greg Gerst in his comment. "Publically available data refutes many key statements that Globalstar has made," said Gerst, who has an engineering background. He found discrepancies in Globalstar's tests. "I suspect there's something wrong in their test setup. They’re salesmen. All the so-called testing they’ve done is superficial at best, dubious at worst."