Garmin announced a smartwatch and an activity tracker Friday, ahead of this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The $249 vívoactive HR smartwatch counts steps, floors climbed, intensity minutes and monitors sleep, said Garmin. On an earnings call last week, Garmin CEO Cliff Pemble said the company is targeting 10 percent revenue growth in the fitness segment in 2016 -- split among trackers and cycling and running devices -- with new products playing a “key role” in growth projections. Garmin’s Q4 revenue slipped 3 percent year over year to $781 million on currency rate changes and ongoing declines in the personal navigation device market, said Pemble. The company expanded its position with Honda and is now in the Pilot, Accord, Civic and CRV models, and Garmin navigation also is now in Mercedes-Benz C and E class vehicles, Pemble said. Garmin believes it's the market-share leader in the GPS-enabled wearables category with low- to mid-40 percent share, said Pemble. The wearables category expanded “significantly” in the past year but is still in growth mode, he said.

DirecTV and an Arizona customer suing it for supposed Electronic Fund Transfer Act violations settled. In a filing Friday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, plaintiff Rosario Torres said all claims in her putative class action were settled. Torres sued DirecTV in January after signing up for the direct broadcast satellite service and having several months of bills being taken out of her bank account when she said she never authorized it to make such electronic fund transfers and that her signature authorized only the first month's payment. The filing didn't give terms of the settlement. AT&T now owns DirecTV.

Dish Network is interested in taking part in the March broadcast spectrum auction, and said in an SEC filing Thursday it filed an application Feb. 10 "to potentially participate as a bidder." It didn't say what plans it had for any spectrum it might buy. The FCC Wireless Bureau earlier this month rejected a T-Mobile petition asking that Dish and designated entities SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless be classified as "former defaulters" if they participate in the TV incentive auction because of alleged bidding abuses in the AWS-3 auction (see 1602040024). In a note to investors, UBS analyst John Hodulik said limits on discounts for very small companies and Dish's higher leverage likely will limit its bidding ability. The company, in announcing its fiscal 2015 results, said it finished the year with 13.9 million subscribers, vs. roughly 14 million pay-TV subscribers a year earlier. It also finished the year with 623,000 DishNet broadband subscribers, up from 577,000 a year earlier, and the company said it hopes to grow those broadband subscription rolls this year. It said satellite capacity has limited its ability to expand services in some geographic markets, but satellite launches by Hughes and ViaSat in the second half of this year should alleviate those constraints. The company also said its EchoStar XVIII satellite -- which is being built with spot beam technology allowing HD programming -- is to launch in Q2 2016. No satellites are scheduled to end operation this year, though EchoStar IX is operating "month to month," the company said.

Iridium received a General Dynamics contract for its Iridium Extreme 9575 satellite handset to be redesigned for government use, the satellite company said in a news release Tuesday. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Iridium said the Extreme is replacing its 9505A handset.

Hughes Network Systems finished implementation of a managed enterprise network for the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration, bringing remote connectivity to the agency's Mine Emergency Operations vehicles and facilities, the company said in a news release Tuesday. The contract has a ceiling value of about $1.36 million over the course of one year plus four option years, Hughes said.

SoftBank will provide high-speed commercial LTE service in Japan this year using Gilat's satellite-based cellular capabilities, the companies said in an announcement Tuesday. SoftBank said it already provides 3G mobile communications in Japan using satellite communications as backhaul. The LTE service announcement follows trials demonstrating file transfer protocol downlink rates of up to 100 Mbps using actual mobile handsets, the two said. “We will be able to also offer high-speed LTE services in mountainous regions, remote islands and other areas in Japan where it is difficult to install fixed-line backhaul cost-effectively and quickly," said SoftBank Head-Technology Unit Yasuyuki Imai. "We already have satellite-based backhaul in those regions, but now we will be able to offer our customers LTE speeds. We also expect to see the application of this technology to the mobile network of our group company Sprint in the U.S. Our hope is that this technology will help play a role in bridging the digital divide.”

Gogo still hopes to win back American Airlines from in-flight connectivity rival ViaSat, even though American is suing Gogo, Gogo said in an SEC filing Tuesday. American Airlines sued Gogo in Tarrant County, Texas, Friday, seeking a declaration that the airline properly notified the in-flight connectivity company about ViaSat's offering "a materially improved service." The suit says a clause in American's contract with Gogo lets the airline terminate that agreement when it finds a competitive offering better than Gogo's air-to-ground (ATG) system, but Gogo "refuses to acknowledge or accept American's notice letter under the agreement." In the suit, American said Gogo's ATG system provides at most 10 Mbps of bandwidth to be shared among all users on a given flight, and blocks most video content, but "new satellite-based services offer 12 Mbps per device [and] offer gate-to-gate WiFi access for customers, even over oceans." In a statement filed with the SEC, Gogo said that American "is a valued customer of ours and that we look forward to resolving the disagreement regarding contract interpretation that led to this declaratory judgment action." It also said it plans to give American a competing proposal to install its 2Ku satellite service on the air carrier. "We plan to submit a competing proposal to install our latest satellite technology -- 2Ku -- on this fleet. We believe that 2Ku is the best performing technology in the market and look forward to discussing our offer with American," Gogo said. In a statement Tuesday, American said it "continually evaluates in-flight connectivity service to determine what best meets our customers’ needs and wants. We’ve notified Gogo of a competitor’s offering, and we will evaluate all of our options.”

Inmarsat wants to add its Inmarsat-5 F3 satellite at 180 degrees east as a point of communication for all its authorized and pending earth stations covered by Global Xpress Ka-band maritime mobile blanket earth station license. In an FCC International Bureau filing Thursday, Inmarsat said the satellite's coverage area would add the Pacific Ocean, West Coast and Pacific Rim to the terminals' area of operation. Inmarsat said it also was seeking authority to operate fixed or temporary earth station terminals communicating with the satellite on land within the continental U.S., Hawaii and U.S. territories, and on fixed and mobile offshore platforms.

Competitive Carriers Association joined Ligado Networks and Trimble (see 1602040015) in asking the FCC to issue a public notice seeking comments on a proposed auction of the 1675-1680 MHz band and of Ligado's related license modification request. In a filing Friday in docket 12-340, CCA said Ligado's proposed L-band terrestrial broadband service could mean "putting to use spectrum that has been lying fallow for years." CCA also said the agency "should seize this opportunity to incentivize private sector entities to invest their own time and capital to enable more efficient use of federal spectrum," but didn't elaborate. Ligado -- the former LightSquared -- has pushed repeatedly for the FCC to open comments on its LTE plans, which include shared commercial use and auction of 1675-1680 MHz spectrum, currently used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (see 1601270046). The FCC didn't comment Friday. In a separate filing Friday in the docket, Ligado submitted a declaration by former Motorola Mobility Chief Technical Officer Bill Alberth and a GPS market analysis to back its argument that LTE operational limits in the settlement it reached with Garmin also will benefit other GPS operators. Since a small number of suppliers serve the GPS hardware market, "any improvements, modifications, or other changes to components required by a market-leading firm like Garmin will result in an updated component not only being sold to that company, but also to all other GPS consumer device manufacturers," Ligado said. The company also said it plans to start working with 3rd Generation Partnership Project once the FCC modifies its spectrum licenses, "mak[ing] it possible for Ligado to seek industry agreement and support for its spectrum to be incorporated in this 3GPP Release 14 for March 2017." That would lead to chipsets, software and hardware that could use the Ligado band coming out as "part of the wireless industry’s transition to 5G, with its tremendous capability to yet again revolutionize the mobility experience for consumers," it said.

Travelers Property Casualty's attempt to add Ace American Insurance as a defendant in its lawsuit against Dish Network "is blatant forum shopping," Ace said in memorandum in opposition Thursday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Illinois. Travelers sued Dish in 2012, Ace a year later, with both seeking determinations they aren't responsible for defense costs as Dish fights claims by the FTC and California, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio alleging violations of the telemarketing sales rule because Dish helped dealers make robocalls (see 0903260144). Travelers in December filed a motion to amend its complaint to assert a claim against Ace, seeking defense cost contributions from Ace to the extent the two insurers are found to owe Dish defense costs. In its response motion, Ace said Travelers has had years to transfer or consolidate the Ace and Travelers suits, but it "permitted parallel proceedings to continue in different jurisdictions until long after it received an unfavorable ruling ... that it had a duty to defend Dish" and months after it became evident Travelers and Dish were at loggerheads regarding summary judgment. Travelers didn't comment Friday.