China's satcom initiatives -- such as the nation's recently announced Hongyan low earth orbit satcom constellation, targeted to be operational in 2021 -- are less motivated by return on investment than on increasing the nation's power and influence and could prove a market challenge for Western operators, Northern Sky Research consultant Jose Del Rosario blogged Tuesday. While Hongyan is unlikely to get U.S. or Canadian market access, a business challenge for Western constellation operators could come in the form of China financing packages that favor Hongyan over rival services from Western LEO operators targeting Eurasia or other low-income nation markets, he said.

Intelsat wants to relocate Intelsat 9 and extend that satellite's license term through July 2021. In an FCC International Bureau filing Monday, Intelsat said moving the satellite from 29.5 degrees west to 66.15 degrees east would let it provide additional capacity at that new orbital slot. It said the satellite's current license term expires July 31, 2019, but Intelsat 9 has at least two years of useful life beyond that. The company said the drift to 66.15 degrees east is expected to start on or around June 10 and take 10 months.

Eutelsat wants its French-licensed 133WA satellite to have U.S. market access. In an FCC International Bureau filing Friday, it said the satellite -- currently at 33 degrees east -- will relocate soon to 133 degrees west and begin operating there by mid-2018 to provide Ku-band capacity to the U.S. and other markets. It plans to deploy a purpose-built Ku- and Ka-band satellite at 133 degrees west by 2021. Eutelsat said 133WA's end of life should be no sooner than October 2022. Intelsat requested that orbital location for its forthcoming Galaxy 15R satellite (see 1705250004), which would operate in some of the same bands as 133WA; Eutelsat asked for a waiver of rules that would defer its petition during the pendency of the Intelsat application so it could still introduce 133WA service this year. It said 133WA would be decommissioned at about the same time 15R would launch.

Protecting satellite-delivered C-band services from interference from terrestrial mobile (IMT) base stations requires "significant separation distances," SES said in an FCC docket 17-183 technical analysis posted Monday. It said the SES analysis looked at earth stations near Virginia Beach and found that to protect fixed satellite service operations, such IMT base stations operating in the same C-band frequencies would need exclusion zones of up to 65 kilometers from north to south and up to 75 kilometers from east to west. Since C-band receive earth stations are so ubiquitous, terrestrial mobile service deployment is essentially impossible in much of the country due to those separation distances, SES said.

OneWeb again argued against band segmentation when coordination talks fail (see 1803010031), in a meeting with FCC International Bureau Chief Tom Sullivan, according to a docket 16-408 filing posted Monday. It said David Goldman, chief counsel-communications and technology, House Commerce Committee, and GSMA Spectrum Head Brett Tarnutzer also attended. OneWeb said it also told the bureau that use of the 12.2-12.7 GHz band on a protected basis is vital for the company and terrestrial broadband can't employ that band. OneWeb indicated satellite operators can work with terrestrial interests on flexible and efficient use of the 28 GHz band, but current rules might create earth station siting difficulties. In a separate filing, OneWeb defended as an alternative to band splitting its proposed global public notice rule: that the FCC fall back on filing date priority for deciding how two systems can be protected during stage 2 coordination once the coordination trigger is surpassed and the sides can't reach coordination agreement. It said similar ITU coordination policies guide non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite systems outside the U.S. On concerns that parties with higher ITU coordination priority lack incentive to coordinate with lower-priority systems, it said FCC rules require coordination in good faith, and the current satellite economy shows investors are interested in systems even without ITU priority.

The U.S. District Court in Houston does in fact have jurisdiction over Canadian and British defendants, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), in Dish Network's copyright complaints against alleged streaming video piracy operations ZemTV and TVaddons, Dish told the court in a docket 17-1618 reply (in Pacer) Wednesday to the defendants' motion to dismiss (see 1801090012). Dish said the defendants didn't respond to written discovery requiring them to identify any other state in which they would be subject to jurisdiction or seeking information about their contacts with other specific states. And it said the two "purposely availed themselves" of the U.S. market for producing and distributing ZemTV through TVaddons. Counsel for the defendants didn't comment Friday.

Andreessen Horowitz made its first space-related investment with Astranis Space Technologies. Andreessen partner Martin Casado blogged Thursday that the venture capital firm liked the broadband satellite company's proposed use of technology to provide high-bandwidth coverage using small geosynchronous satellites. Andreessen emailed us that its investment is $13.5 million.

OneWeb CEO Greg Wyler met with FCC Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel to make the case that for successful non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite services, band segmentation shouldn't be the result of failed good-faith coordination talks. A docket 16-408 filing posted Thursday said he also urged regulatory encouragement of responsible and reliable satellite design and operation.

Cumulative flat-panel satellite antenna equipment sales are expected to reach $7.9 billion by 2027, Northern Sky Research said Wednesday. It said aeronautical equipment will be the chief driver of manufacturers' revenue, but fixed broadband applications on non-geostationary orbit satellites will be the chief, long-term volume market. It said cost and performance traditionally have been the biggest hurdles to deployment, but in-flight connectivity demand and NGSO beam steering are driving improvements in ground equipment technology. It said once prices drop, flat panels will better compete with parabolic antennas, leading to more adoption of them for fixed applications.

Israel's NSLComm plans to a launch a high-throughput nanosatellite, NSLSat-1, in low earth orbit (LEO) in November, it said Tuesday. It said the nanosat will deliver up to 1 Gbps and opens the door to a variety of LEO satcom services.