Comments are due July 9 on the small satellites authorization streamlining NPRM adopted by the FCC at the commissioners' April meeting (see 1804170038 first Notebook), replies Aug. 8, says a notice in Thursday's Federal Register.

The FCC International Bureau denied U.S. market access for Eutelsat's 133WB satellite. In a letter Tuesday, Satellite Division Chief Jose Albuquerque said there's a likelihood of harmful interference from 133WB to Intelsat's Galaxy 15R, and Intelsat submitted its application for approval to deploy and operate 15R eight months before Eutelsat. Both operators want to provide Ka- and Ku-band service to the U.S. from close orbital slots -- 132.85 degrees west for Eutelsat, 133 degrees west for Intelsat, the bureau said. While 133WB has an earlier ITU protection date than Galaxy 15R, ITU date priority issues aren't relevant to FCC domestic licensing procedures, Albuquerque said. Eutelsat didn't comment.

Any Supreme Court review of Dish Network's de facto control of designated entities SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless would be premature since the issue is before the FCC in an attempt at letting the petitioner DEs fix the control problem, the agency said in a Supreme Court docket 17-1058 respondent brief posted Tuesday. It opposed the DEs' petition for writ of certiorari; experts have said the odds aren't clear of the court taking up the petition regarding agency handling of the AWS-3 auction bidding credits (see 1801290033). The FCC said its negotiations with Dish to fix the control problem are ongoing and could eliminate the practical significance of the case. It said if the FCC sticks to its ineligibility finding at the end of the remanded proceedings, the DEs could then seek juridical review. That the feasibility of an amendment that both sides agree on is questionable isn't a reason to grant review now, the agency said. It waved off the DEs' argument that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit erred in finding the DEs should have anticipated the FCC would find them under de facto Dish control, saying the appellate court applied the test the DEs advocated and failed to show any error in the test the court used. The DEs have complained about not getting FCC feedback on proposed fixes (see 1805070028). The DEs, FCC and Dish didn't comment.

ITU equivalent power flux-density (EPFD) limits are more than enough to protect geostationary orbit (GSO) satellites from nongeostationary orbit (NGSO) satellites, SpaceX said in an FCC docket 16-408 filing posted Thursday. It said once its NGSO constellation is operational, it will likely use 3,300 earth stations over a service area of 110 million square kilometers, slightly less than the planet's land surface. It said worst-case interference from those earth stations for reference antennas would be negligible and even if five similar NGSO systems were operating at the EPFD limit, the aggregate interference "would still be very reasonable." The company said when a SpaceX earth station is in the boresight of a geostationary antenna emitting the maximum planned effective isotropic radiated power toward the GSO arc, the interference would still be negligible. ViaSat said the FCC needs to adopt stricter EPFD limits.

One week into SiriusXM’s launch of its new iOS and Android streaming apps and web player, including the debut of a Howard Stern video offering (see 1804250075 or 1804250005), the company is getting a “good initial response from customers” to the new services, Chief Financial Officer David Frear told a JPMorgan investment conference. The offering has “a limited amount of video,” said Frear. “It's a sort of way of walking into that new product feature, walk before you run,” he said Wednesday. “We would expect to enrich” the video content as “the summer goes on, as we come into the fall,” he said. On SiriusXM’s ambitions in streaming content, “we've done OK with it, but we could do much better,” said Frear. “We never had a product manager who is focused just on streaming” but do now, he said. “Broadening subscriber engagement” would be a good measure of the company’s success in streaming, he said.

Clearing more than 100 MHz of C-band for terrestrial use is feasible but "challenging," and will take substantial time, money and effort, Intelsat CEO Stephen Spengler said Thursday during a JPMorgan investor conference. Spectrum beyond that 100 MHz is "an order of magnitude" more difficult than the first 100 MHz, he said, adding the company hasn't started assessment work for going beyond the 100 MHz it, SES and Intel are proposing. Spengler said Intelsat is calculating what the price tag might be for clearing part of the band and moving some customers higher on the band, with expenses including potentially relocating some earth stations. "I wouldn't put in the billions [of dollars] but it's a sizable effort," he said. He said a lot of major headends have fiber connections, but there are 5,000 to 6,000 remote sites where fiber isn't an option instead of using C-band, and Ku-band suffers from inferior performance characteristics and that there isn't capacity available to relocate all the video and radio distribution supported by C-band. Spengler said the FCC is indicating an NPRM on C-band could be coming this summer, as expected (see 1804200003), and a final order could come in the first half of 2019. Comcast, which expressed concerns about C-band clearing to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's office (see 1805110054), made similar presentations to aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendan Carr, said a docket 17-258 filing posted Thursday.

Comcast expressed concern about plans to clear a portion of the C-band for terrestrial wireless use. High-bandwidth video technologies like 4K are pushing the need for more C-band capacity for video distribution, not less, Comcast officials told an aide to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, according to a docket 17-183 filing posted Friday. It said FCC decisions to reallocate the C-band shouldn't bind deployment decisions that limit technologies like HD and Ultra-HD. Any NPRM on repacking C-band video distribution services into less spectrum should address the effects on video transmission, Comcast said. Those effects range from increased channel occupancy and power spectral density, which could raise risk of adjacent satellite interference at earth stations, to more instances of multiple carriers sharing a single transponder, increasing risk of intermodulation interference, it said. Comcast said it uses "hundreds" of C-band earth stations around the country and about 80 percent of its video programming comes to it via C-band satellites. It said its “head-end in the sky” service distributes programming to small and midsize MVPD headends in rural areas via C-band. An NPRM on the Intel/Intelsat/SES plan for clearing a portion of the C-band is expected this summer (see 1804200003).

SES and Intelsat are backing American Cable Association recommendations for clarifications to the public notice on the freeze on new C-band earth stations (see 1805010078). In a docket 17-183 filing posted Wednesday, the satellite companies said they share ACA concerns that the existing PN language could deter earth station operators from registering their facilities with the FCC, and the clarifications could promote registration. They recommended the agency relax the Form 312 information requirements and filing fees since filing out the form can take as much as 24 hours.

As the world moves toward mass-market data pricing, only scale and network efficiencies can take satellite operators to that level of pricing, meaning the industry should expect horizontal mergers and operator/equipment provider partnerships to get to that scale, Northern Sky Research analyst Gagan Agrawal blogged Monday. "The ride will be rough and gambled with a lot of risk money, but it’s hard to see the industry register long term growth otherwise."

The FCC should issue a policy statement acknowledging its ability to authorize earth stations in motion operations where applicants show there won't be a significant effect on a company's licensed and actual feeder links because the evidence is clear ESIM can operate without unacceptable interference to Iridium's Ka-band feeder link operations, Inmarsat, SES and ViaSat representatives told an aide to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, said a docket 17-95 ex parte filing posted Tuesday: That policy would balance Iridium concerns with FCC responsibility for most efficient use of spectrum. “Not only are their assertions belied by the record, they are contradicted by their own earlier filings," Iridium emailed us. The three other satellite companies said ESIM operations in the 28.35-28.6 GHz band won't unduly interfere with upper microwave flexible use service (UMFUS) operations in the 27.5-28.35 GHz band thanks to out-of-band emissions limits on fixed earth stations. They said there shouldn't be limits on ESIM operations in the 28.35-28.6 GHz band. The Global Mobile Suppliers Association, which has concerns about ESIM interference with UMFUS operations in the band (see 1708310004), didn't comment.