Most of its earth stations already licensed to use the 28 GHz band wouldn't be in compliance with the siting restrictions put in place by the spectrum frontiers order, EchoStar said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-177. It also submitted suggested power flux density (PFD) limits for 39 GHz band operations that it said are tailored for the regional atmospheric condition differences around the country. EchoStar said under the FCC rule Section 25.136, applicants for a 28 GHz fixed satellite service (FSS) earth station license face limits in the form of a protection zone that can't contain any major event venue, arterial street, interstate, urban mass transit route, passenger railroad or cruise ship port. The company said to demonstrate how onerous those conditions are to FSS operators, it analyzed its gateway earth stations authorized to operate with its EchoStar XIX satellite and found that only four of 17 grandfathered earth stations comply with the siting rules. It also said that in six of the seven cases where its sites have contours that cover no population at all, some other factor like a nearby road or event venue could preclude future earth stations there, so the agency should revise its siting rules. EchoStar also urged the FCC to establish the conditions whereby satellite operators can use ITU PFD limits set on the 39 GHz band to overcome rain fade, since currently the commission allows such power limits to deal with rain fade but also requires PFD limits that are 12 dB below the ITU during clear sky conditions. The satellite company said it would prefer uniform PFD limits, but if the FCC wants to tailor its downlink PFD limits to different geographies' atmospheric conditions, it could set tiers with higher PFD limits in more humid parts of the nation and lower tiers in more arid regions.

The satellite industry's slice of the connected car market won't be big, at least for the next decade, said Northern Sky Research analyst Dallas Kasaboski in a blog post Sunday: The number of land-mobile connected vehicles receiving broadband by satellite is expected to be small through 2025, with wireless and cellular coverage instead being dominant. NSR said satellite's challenges include signal decay limiting its effectiveness, while weather and vehicle speed issues necessitate rugged, expensive antennas. Also making competition difficult is the near ubiquity of terrestrial services, it said. NSR said while numerous partnerships between mobile operators and the auto industry have been announced, there have been few such talks between the auto world and satellite service providers. "OEM deals are key factors to enable satellite-based connectivity in cars," NSR said. Antenna manufacturers haven't focused on connected cars, seeing it "as very niche with little potential," it said, adding there's a bigger focus on providing connected vehicle capability for high-speed railways. Dual-mode devices that switch between terrestrial mobile and satellite networks and are integrated directly into vehicle manufacture "will allow satcom to ride along with the success of terrestrially-connected vehicles, while proposing an added value proposition for use in remote environments," NSR said, though it added an integrated billing system could be difficult. "It will be necessary if satcom is to make a play with network-agnostic passengers in the connected car market," said the researcher.

Dish Network will deliver live in 4K Ultra HD a natural history series, Planet Earth II, it said in an announcement. The series, narrated by David Attenborough, will be simulcast on BBC America, AMC and SundanceTV Saturday, with subsequent episodes airing on BBCA every Saturday night, Dish said. Dish is also offering an exclusive free preview of BBC America, from Tuesday through March 30, giving customers access to Planet Earth II in both 4K and HD at no extra cost, it said.

Higher Ground's plans to deploy up to 50,000 mobile satellite earth stations is raising considerable threats of adjacent channel interference to nearly 58,000 fixed service point-to-point microwave links already being operated, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition said in an FCC application for review to have been posted Friday. FWCC simultaneously also filed a motion for a stay of the authorization Higher Ground received in January for the C-band deployments. FWCC said the Higher Ground waiver requires it prevent harmful interference to fixed service (FS) operations, but the company "failed to show it can carry this burden" and hasnt released details of how its system operates or give any proof it has been tested in real-world conditions. The group said the requirement Higher Ground keep logs for purposes of confirming or denying it caused interference on an occasion is useless since an FS operator couldn't tell the source of a service interruption and it does nothing to prevent or predict a recurrence. In its application for review to be posted Friday, FWCC said a Higher Ground representative last year at a frequency coordination committee meeting admitted the company won't provide protection against adjacent channel interference, and that company's subsequent assurance it would comply with applicable out-of-band emission limits "was an evasion, a technical play on words" since it addresses a different problem of a transmitter tuned to one channel that improperly puts a signal into a different one.

Along with the Galaxy 28, SES-3 and Telesat T12V satellites, Gogo subsidiary AC BidCo wants to add the ARSAT-2 to its pending application to modify its earth stations aboard aircraft (ESAA) license (see 1701100014). In an FCC International Bureau filing Wednesday, AC BidCo said the Argentine-licensed satellite at 81 degrees west orbit would provide coverage of North America. In a separate filing Wednesday, the company asked for 60 days of special temporary authority, starting March 1, to allow as many as 200 ESAA terminals to communicate with the satellite over the Ku-band while its license amendment application is pending.

Space Systems Loral got a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract to develop the capability to service and maintain geosynchronous orbit satellites -- a contract Orbital ATK is suing to block. SSL said in a news release Thursday that DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program will be the foundation of a new business line in repairing, relocating and refueling in-orbit assets. SSL said it will provide a spacecraft to carry the robotic servicing payload and take care of integration of the two, and DARPA will provide robotics technology and the launch. SSL also said it's in talks "with several key customers" about the planned commercial venture and it will market the offering to both commercial and government satellite operators. Orbital ATK said it plans its first satellite life extension project in 2019 for Intelsat (see [Ref:1604120044]). In its suit (in Pacer) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Orbital ATK and its Space Logistics subsidiary called the DARPA award to SSL a "waste [of] hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars" for satellite servicing technology that NASA and the private sector are developing. The contract violates U.S. space policy instituted in a 2010 Obama administration executive order mandating government space systems be developed only when there's no suitable commercial alternative and precluding space activities that could compete with U.S. commercial space activities, Orbital ATK said, asking for declaratory relief and an injunction. DARPA said RSGS is aimed at technologies important to national security and not expected to be commercially available in the near term, such as ultra-close inspection, mechanical anomaly repair, and installation of technical packages satellite exteriors -- "all of which require highly dexterous robotic arms" like those already created by DARPA. SSL didn't comment about the litigation. Also named as a defendant is DARPA acting Director Steven Walker.

Gilat Satellite Networks and Airbus will jointly work on developing a Ka-band electronically steerable antenna for in-flight connectivity applications, Gilat said in a news release Thursday. Development work on the wing-embedded antenna array will include design, manufacturing and testing.

DirecTV and a plaintiff in a class-action antitrust lawsuit over the NFL Sunday Ticket (see 1512300027) are at odds over the significance of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last month on contract law. The plaintiffs, in a supplemental authority notice (in Pacer) filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, said January's Norcia vs. Samsung ruling makes it clear that a 2013 9th Circuit case cited by DirecTV wasn't binding on implied acceptance of an arbitration clause, and assumptions on which the arbitration clause section of the 2013 decision is based are questionable. The plaintiffs also said Norcia cited a 1972 California Court of Appeals ruling indicating offerees aren't bound to contractual provisions if they're unaware of them and if they are in a document without an obvious contractual nature. But DirecTV in a filing (in Pacer) Wednesday said Norcia actually reaffirms that keeping DirecTV service while knowing there are terms connected with the service means customers validly assent to those terms under California law. On the 1972 ruling, DirecTV said it has never disputed the existence of that general principle under California law, but it believes it isn't applicable to the NFL Sunday Ticket case since the DirecTV commercial agreement was mailed to the San Francisco sports bar plaintiff and the arbitration agreement is the first paragraph in bold capital letters. "The Norcia decision cannot be read to suggest that consent to a contract ... can somehow be nullified as to certain obligations because the offeree allegedly did not read them," DirecTV said. AT&T now owns that firm.

Starz launched its $8-per-month pay TV service on DirecTV Now, it announced Tuesday. Starz joins the separate eight-channel Starz Encore offering, which AT&T first made available in its $70-per-month “Gotta Have It” package when the streaming service launched last year (see 1611280058). Starz on DirecTV Now will offer more than 2,500 TV episodes and movies, it said.

Aerospace joined the Satellite Industry Association as an affiliate member, SIA said in a news release Monday. The trade group launched its affiliate membership category in 2015, aimed at companies and groups previously not eligible for membership.