The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that one contractual term made various telemarketers agents of Dish Network flies in the face of past 7th Circuit decisions requiring control of an agent's day-to-day operations, Dish said in a petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc Wednesday (docket 17-3111, in Pacer). The 7th Circuit affirmed a lower court's $280 million lower court verdict for Telephone Consumer Protection Act violations (see 2004150004).
MVPDs won't let C-band satellite operators do earth station work without site-specific plans that ensure no disruptions in service, so satellite operators' band transition plans have to meet ACA Connects criteria, the trade group told FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology staffers, said a docket 18-122 posting Thursday. It's concerned satellite operators are collecting only antenna data and not headend information, which could force MVPDs to do the earth station work themselves with a lump sum amount that won't cover costs or having the work done by satellite operators "who do not appear prepared to take sufficient responsibility for all work necessary." It argued for its proposed lump sum amount of $764,500. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said the commission should extend the comment deadline in the lump sum public notice, and release more information about the assumptions and methodology underlying its proposed lump sum payment amounts. NCTA and ACA also asked for an extended comment timeframe (see 2006100005).
Opposition to petitions for reconsideration of the FCC's Ligado order (see 2005270031) are due June 26, replies July 6, said Thursday's Federal Register.
Rules for earth station siting in the millimeter wave bands need to reflect the intention of the FCC's spectrum frontiers order and give operators adequate flexibility, Hughes said in a docket 17-172 posting Wednesday. It said spectrum frontiers' intent is contrary to such ideas as blanket objections during public notice periods when coordinating with upper microwave flexible use services (UMFUS), ignoring the interference impact of grandfathered earth stations in collocation situations. It opposed a UMFUS operator being able to claim that because an earth station buildout is done on a secondary basis, the earth station operator should lose its protected status.
Requiring pico- and nano-satellites have active maneuverability in orbits above 400 kilometers will eliminate about half the launch opportunities and nearly all opportunities for sun-synchronous orbits, several very small satellite operators, the Commercial Picosatellite and Nanosatellite Developers Group, said Wednesday in a docket 18-313 posting. They said the FCC should put maneuverability requirements only on constellations that combined reach some particular mass, such as 100 kilograms. They recommend maneuvering requirements be proportional to the risk, and if a larger satellite and smaller one receive a conjunction notice, the larger one should have to change its orbit more to reduce collision probability. Incentivizing shorter orbits could be a matter of reducing required bonds if the planned orbit is less than 25 years, they said.
Balance Group opposition to SpaceX's ask to operate non-geostationary orbit satellites at lower altitudes than currently approved (see 2004200003) is really a Trojan horse for it to air its grievances with FCC processes for adopting policies Balance doesn't like, SpaceX said in an International Bureau filing Monday, urging dismissal of Balance's opposition. Balance said the SpaceX-requested modification calls into question "the project’s core propositional integrity and planning." It said "critical information" needs to be added to the record, including information about national security, environmental impact, the existence of suitable insurance and indemnification and permissions from other federal agencies that have subject matter jurisdiction. Viasat said SpaceX's orbital debris modeling seems to be based on an outdated version of NASA's debris assessment software and proprietary software, and it should be ordered to use the most-recent version of DAS before its application goes on public notice. SpaceX didn't comment Tuesday.
Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband faces some significant headwinds on its way to business viability, including the difficulty competing in suburban and urban markets with incumbents, CoBank reported Monday. Another competitive challenge is the growth in rural wireless broadband networks due to government incentives and new business models, it said. LEO constellations also could have difficulty getting funding, CoBank said, pointing to OneWeb's bankruptcy (see 2003310042). It said Amazon or SpaceX seem the most likely buyers of bankrupt OneWeb's assets, with its spectrum being particularly attractive. The lender said Amazon doesn't have access-to-capital issues and its opportunity to bundle the broadband with other services gives it particular strength.
When coordinating with other non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service (NGSO FSS) systems, SpaceX can't claim more protection for its Ku-band gateway earth stations than the protection to which a SpaceX user terminal would be entitled at that same location. That according to an FCC International Bureau order Thursday in which it modified its 2019 approval of modifications to SpaceX's NGSO FSS constellation (see 1904260071) with an added condition. The order was in response to a OneWeb petition for reconsideration, which it granted in part. It rejected a Kepler Communications recon petition. SpaceX didn't comment Friday.
Mandatory collision risk insurance and independent "space sustainability" ratings are among options for incentivizing satellite operators to make sure their satellites de-orbit within 25 years of mission completion, said space debris experts Thursday in an Aerospace Corp. webinar. Rebecca Reesman, Aerospace project engineer, said other possible incentives include a de-orbit credit trading regime somewhat akin to carbon credits, government-mandated regulations and industry-created norms. Dan Oltrogge, director of AGI's Center for Space Standards and Innovation, said the FCC's April orbital debris rules update and NPRM (see 2004230040) largely fits with what industry is trying to accomplish. Reesman said compliance with the international 25-year guideline is "not great," and needs to improve, especially with the expected slew of mega constellations. Oltrogge said governmental and private sector tracking of objects and debris in orbit is capturing only about 4% of things above a centimeter in size, but tracking capabilities are improving so the public catalog of tracked debris in five years will be 10 times what it is today. There also will be a tenfold increase in satellites in orbit over the next decade, he said.
Inmarsat wants FCC International Bureau OK to add 4,000 Cobham 6075 terminals to its blanket license for Ka-band land-based terminals, said its application Tuesday. The earth stations will communicate with the Inmarsat-5 F2 and Inmarsat-5 F3 satellites, it said.