The U.S. Solicitor General and the FCC asked the Supreme Court not to hear a complaint by Dish Network designated entities SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless about how the FCC handled AWS-3 auction bidding credits. The DEs filed a petition in January with the Supreme Court seeking writ of certiorari and appealing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's August ruling that upheld the FCC withholding credits because of the DEs’ close ties to Dish (see 1708290012). The D.C. Circuit “correctly upheld the FCC’s determination that petitioners were ineligible for very-small-business bidding credits -- available to businesses with less than $15 million in annual revenues -- because they are affiliates of, and subject to de facto control by, a Fortune 250 company with $13 billion in revenue that is attributable to petitioners under FCC rules,” said the federal brief. “Petitioners do not directly challenge the court of appeals’ conclusion that the FCC reasonably applied its relevant regulations and precedents, nor do they suggest that this holding conflicts with any decision of this Court or another court of appeals. Instead, they challenge … the court of appeals’ finding that petitioners had fair notice of how the FCC would apply those regulations and precedents to the circumstances of this case. That contention lacks merit.” The brief was filed in Supreme Court docket No. 17-1058.

Intelsat is partnering with Latin American broadcaster Globoto beam live 8K video transmissions of the World Cup to the Museu de Amanhã science museum in Rio de Janeiro, said the satellite operator Friday. The signal is being transmitted as a 200 Mbps video stream at the International Broadcast Center in Moscow and transported to Tokyo, where it will then be carried to Intelsat via the Intelsat “point of presence” in New York, it said. The signal will be transmitted on the IntelsatOne terrestrial network to Intelsat’s teleport in Atlanta, where it will be re-encoded at 90 Mbps using a special NTT 8K H.265 real-time encoder, it said. Once the video is compressed and modulated, it will be uplinked to Intelsat 14, the company’s “emerging HD video neighborhood in Latin America known for its HD and 4K content distribution,” it said.

The filing window for initial registration of fixed satellite service earth stations seeking protection from citizens broadband radio service users in the 3.5 GHz band opened Friday, the FCC said. “Initial registration can be completed at any time,” a public notice said. “Earth station licensees requesting protection must also update their registration in the event of a change in any of the operational parameters.” The PN was released by the Wireless and International bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology.

Dish Network customers with a Hopper 3 set-top and 4K HDR TV can tune to channel 540 and watch “nearly every” World Cup match in “stunning 4K HDR quality,” blogged the pay-TV service Thursday. The matches will be captured, broadcast and received in HDR10, emailed Dish spokeswoman Chelsea Satkowiak. The World Cup competition opened Thursday in Russia for a monthlong run.

O3b is asking the FCC International Bureau to clarify its requirement that Intelsat, as part of the authorization of the Galaxy 15R satellite, certify it has a coordination agreement with Ka-band non-geostationary orbit systems serving the U.S. or demonstrate how it will protect such systems, saying those showings must happen before the launch of the NGSO system. In an IB petition this week, O3b said the May authorization of 15R isn't clear on what it would mean for O3b's constellation already in operation. It said the Galaxy 15R grant should be modified to include language saying Intelsat must comply with the conditions before the launch of 15R. Intelsat said Thursday it has no objections to the clarification O3b is seeking.

Globalstar is taking its request for a notice of inquiry on 5.1 GHz band sharing between mobile satellite service and outdoor Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) operations to the FCC's eighth floor. A RM-11808 filing Wednesday recapped meetings with aides to Commissioners Mike O'Rielly, Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel about its petition for an NOI (see 1805220006). The company said severe harmful interference will result if no changes are made to the U-NII-1 sharing regime.

Coming to global consensus on space traffic management is going to be a big challenge because commercial space is "still an odd concept to many other countries," National Space Council Executive Secretary Scott Pace told the Transportation Department’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee Thursday. He said the U.S. is trying to promote voluntary best practices that can be adopted globally as nonbinding guidelines and then used as references by countries as they individually adopt regulations. He said the spectrum language in the commercial space policy directive signed last month by President Donald Trump (see 1805240031) reflects the idea that 5G deployment particularly in rural areas and developing countries will largely involve satellite, and satellite operations count on spectrum access. "5G does not mean everything is on the ground," he said.

The satellite industry globally had revenue of $268.6 billion last year, its third straight year of low-single-digit percentage growth, and the U.S. share at $113 billion marked a third year of similar growth, the Satellite Industry Association's reported Wednesday. Bryce Space and Technology prepared the report. SIA said of the 1,738 satellites in orbit as of year's end, commercial communications accounted for 31 percent and earth observation another 29 percent, by far the biggest categories. It said 345 commercially procured satellites were launched last year, more than double the 126 in 2016, with cubesat traffic driving most of that. Bryce Senior Program Manager Anton Dolgopolov said cubesat traffic likely would be similar this year, as long as launch availability doesn't get constricted. The eight total geostationary orbit satellite orders of 2017 are "a disproportionately low year" and could be an anomaly since there have been eight orders so far in 2018, said Bryce CEO Carissa Christensen. Roughly half of those 345 were earth observation satellites, SIA said. Christensen said venture capital funding of smallsats gravitated toward earth observation first, and now those constellations are starting to be deployed while communications smallsats are in the planning and development stages. 2017 was the second year of double-digit revenue growth for earth observation, and the completion of some constellations should mean an even higher growth rate this year, SIA President Tom Stroup said. Satellite broadband revenue rose 4 percent and subscribers gained 5 percent to roughly 2 million, SIA said. Stroup said the industry has been constricted on capacity, but recent launches of high-throughput satellites by ViaSat and EchoStar should allow bigger satellite broadband subscriber growth this year. U.S. operators had notable revenue drops in DBS and growth in managed services, SIA said. It said the average price per kilogram for launch dropped 40 percent from 2016, due to cheaper SpaceX launches and fewer expensive United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket launches than in 2016. The Russian launch industry continues to lose market share as reliability concerns scare off potential customers, along with a deliberate pull back on commercial activity and a focus more on supporting the Russian national space program, said Dolgopolov. SIA said launch industry revenue fell 16 percent to $4.6 billion, and the U.S. had the largest share of commercially procured launch revenue at 39 percent.

Eutelsat’s TV service-provider customers in Russia, Europe and the Americas booked 5,500 hours of HD broadcast capacity for the World Cup, which opens Friday for a monthlong run, said the satellite operator Tuesday.

Dish Network added new Alexa voice-control capabilities to its Hopper, Hopper Duo, Joey and Wally set-tops, said the company Tuesday. With Alexa, customers will now be able to set recordings, launch apps and navigate menus, said Dish. Previous Alexa functionality on the set-tops allowed the ability to play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and search content, it said. Each Dish internet-connected set-top must be paired with an Alexa device for the new functionality to work, it said.