Intelsat and ITC Global will provide ground-to-ground satellite communication services to Solar Impulse during its first around-the-world solar flight, Intelsat said in a news release Thursday. The services will let the ground crew and support teams communicate from anywhere to anyone in the world, Intelsat said. It said the system uses a 1.8 meter, quick-deploy antenna to leverage Intelsat’s satellite network over the 22,000-mile, 550-hour flight.

Delta Air Lines chose Gogo to upgrade 250 planes from ATG-4 (air-to-ground) in-flight connectivity to 2Ku technology, Gogo said in a news release Wednesday. Gogo will begin the upgrade in 2016, it said. The 2Ku technology will deliver speeds of 70 Mbps, it said.

ViaSat discussed Phase II of the Connect America Fund (CAF) with Jonathan Chambers, chief, Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis; Diane Cornell, special counsel to Chairman Tom Wheeler; and Daniel Alvarez, legal adviser to the chairman, on Thursday, ViaSat said in an ex parte notice posted at the FCC Monday in docket 10-90. Satellite-delivered broadband should play a “significant role” in the commission’s CAF structuring, ViaSat said. ViaSat’s satellite broadband services will be able to meet technology-neutral standards that the commission might establish “as a condition to being eligible to receive support,” it said.

DirecTV CEO Michael White thinks the “most important question” facing Ultra HD adoption is “what content's going to be available in 4K,” he said Thursday in the Q&A portion of an earnings call. DirecTV laid claim to becoming the first multichannel video programming distributor to deliver 4K VOD to customer homes when it launched Ultra HD programming mid-November (see 1411130039). DirecTV also said it plans to launch "linear" 4K TV services in 2016 (see 1411130033). There’s “a lot of ways to get there,” White said on the call about building a 4K content arsenal. “The best way is to shoot in 4K, but that's quite expensive, and that's why I don't think you see any of the guys jumping in for linear streaming. And to be honest with you, I don't expect to see linear streaming anytime soon because of the cost.” High costs for shooting content in 4K, including for Ultra HD trucks, new cameras and other expenses, are why VOD will be “the first priority from a 4K standpoint” for DirecTV, White said. “We are working on getting more content available” in 4K, White said. “We have had a number of interesting conversations with programming partners about: are there a few events we might want to partner up” on to be shot in 4K and streamed on DirecTV, he said. “The good news is with our new satellite capacity, we have the capacity to do linear channels. We have the capacity to do quite a bit more than we're doing today.” DirecTV in early December announced the successful launch of its DirecTV 14 satellite for Ultra HD delivery. DirecTV 14 will begin commercial operations in Q2, the company has said. White thinks “you'll see more 4K TV sets sold this year based on the strength of the marketing that you're seeing and lower prices from the TV set manufacturers,” he said. “But I'm not building plans around this, all of the HD channels converting to 4K anytime soon. But we'll see down the road as things evolve.”

SES ordered several new satellites this week, it said in a news release Tuesday. The satellite operator ordered SES-16/GovSat through LuxGovSat, a joint venture by SES and the Luxembourg government, it said. The satellite, which will be made by manufacturer Orbital ATK, will use military Ka- and X-bands, it said. SES ordered SES-15, which will be built by Boeing, for more capacity in North America, it said. The satellite will have Ku-band wide beams and Ka- and Ku-band high throughput satellite capabilities, it said. SES ordered SES-14 for growing video demands in the Americas and North Atlantic region, it said. The satellite, which will be built by Airbus Space and Defence, will replace SES’s NSS-806, it said. SES-14 will have C- and Ku-band wide beam coverage and Ka- and Ku-band HTS coverage, it said. SES-14 and -15 will use electric propulsion systems for orbit raising and in-orbit maneuvers and to reduce their weight and allow larger payloads, it said. SES-15 and -16 will be launched in Q2 2017; SES-14 will be launched Q4 2017, it said.

Intelsat Q4 revenue fell 3.7 percent to $619.1 million from the year-ago quarter, a news release said Wednesday. Network services were 46 percent of revenue at $284.1 million, a 5 percent decrease, it said. Government was 16 percent of revenue at $99.7 million, a 14 percent decrease. Media was 37 percent of revenue at $226 million, a 3 percent increase. Income from operations fell 12 percent to $292.7 million. Intelsat stock fell 9.5 percent to $15.77 in trading Wednesday. It will launch Intelsat 34, a replacement for its 304.5 degrees East video neighborhood, in Q3, it said. Intelsat 31, a second satellite that will offer services for direct-to-home (DTH) provider DirecTV Latin America, will launch in Q1 2016, it said. Meanwhile, Intelsat 29e, an Intelsat EpicNG high-throughput satellite, will launch in Q1 2016, it said. Intelsat and Azercosmos, the national satellite operator of Azerbaijan, partnered to deliver the DTH Azerspace-2/Intelsat 38 satellite at 45 degrees East, Intelsat said in a news release Tuesday. The satellite will offer enhanced capacity, coverage and service offerings for Azerspace-1 and Intelsat 12, it said. Intelsat 38 will provide services for Africa, Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, it said. The satellite will be launched in 2017, it said.

DirecTV launched Fox Sports Go, which is now available to about 80 million subscribers, a Fox Sports spokesman said in an email Wednesday. National channels will be launched first, including Big East Digital Network, Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox Sports 1, he said. Regional sports networks will launch in late March or April, he said. Several Fox spokesmen tweeted about the launch Tuesday.

The FCC must ensure that Globalstar will use Wi-Fi channel 14 in a way that “both safeguards and enhances” unlicensed spectrum in that band before it forecloses “existing and future public use of the unlicensed spectrum at 2473 to 2483.5 MHz,” New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute head Michael Calabrese told an aide to Commissioner Michael O'Rielly in a meeting Feb. 11, an ex parte filing said. To do so, the FCC should allow cooperative testing to determine the interference impact of unlicensed use in the band, Calabrese said. If Globalstar's use of the band won't interfere with other unlicensed use, the commission should condition the use of the spectrum on the company providing a guard band to prevent interference to neighboring spectrum or on Globalstar allowing shared use of channel 14, Calabrese said.

Sling TV is adding Epix channels to its live and VOD programming, including Epix, Epix2, Epix3 and Epix Drive-In, Sling TV said in a news release Monday. The launch date and pricing will be announced in the next few weeks, it said. Sling TV launched Feb. 9 (see 1502090025).

Dish Network and Epix reached a multiyear renewal agreement for continued carriage of the channel to the DBS company's customers, Dish said in a news release Monday. Dish customers who subscribe to Epix will have access to more than 2,000 VOD titles on DISHAnywhere.com, epix.com and Dish Anywhere and Epix apps, it said.