With AMC-9 no longer responding to commands, SES Americom's plan to restore long-term service to customers involves moves by both its AMC-4 and AMC-6 satellites. In a pair of FCC International Bureau filings (see here and here) Friday, it asked for special temporary authority to relocate AMC-4 satellite to 85 degrees west to take over the traffic carried by AMC-6, letting AMC-6 move to 83 degrees west to restore traffic hit by an anomaly on AMC-9. It said it can't keep AMC-9 in its assigned station-keeping volume and "a significant portion" of its traffic is now being carried by AMC-6, which was recently relocated to 85 degrees west. It said its plan to restore long-term service to customers who had been using AMC-9 is to temporarily stop AMC-4 -- which recently began drifting 134.9 degrees west -- at 84 degrees west on or around June 29 and transfer AMC-6 traffic to AMC-4. The company said once that transfer is done, AMC-6 can be relocated to 83 degrees west, at which point SES will transfer that traffic back to AMC-6 and then resume the AMC-4 drift.

Dish Network launched an app allowing music from TV audio systems and DTS Play-Fi speakers to be in sync when playing throughout a home. TVs can display the metadata for the music, with Dish Music including Amazon Music, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Napster, Pandora, SiriusXM and Tidal, the company announced Thursday.

Hughes Network Systems is seeking FCC International Bureau approval to launch its Ka- and Q/V-band geostationary orbit satellite, HNS 95W. In a bureau application Wednesday, Hughes said it will provide broadband at speeds "significantly in excess" of the FCC's current 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload definition and is intended to support such applications as 5G and IoT. It said HNS 95W will replace Spaceway 3 at 95 degrees west. It said the cut-off date has passed for Q/V-band non-geostationary orbit satellite applications (see 1611010060), but the public notice didn't apply to GSO applicants and it requests waiver of any applicable cut-off deadline.

Ligado's plans to protect certified aviation GPS receivers from interference still leave helicopter navigation in potential interference danger, said aviation and aerospace representatives. In a meeting with FCC officials, they said results of a Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics review of Ligado-conducted studies about possible interference to those GPS receivers were inconclusive and incomplete. They urged looking at the yet-to-be-released Department of Transportation Adjacent Band Compatibility assessment of the possible impact of Ligado handsets on precision and other noncertified GPS handsets. They said they share Iridium concerns (see 1703280064) that Ligado's ancillary terrestrial component handsets could bring out-of-band interference to satellite communications and said Inmarsat's system could be similarly affected. The aviation interests said the cost of retrofitting aircraft with new satcom receivers would be immense, and who would pay for such a retrofit isn't an issue Ligado raised. A filing posted Wednesday in docket 11-109 recapped the meeting. Participants included the Aerospace Industries Association, Airlines for America, Aviation Spectrum Resources and Helicopter Association International and representatives from the Wireless, International and Public Safety and Homeland Security bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology. Ligado didn't comment.

The precedents that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency cites for dismissal of Orbital ATK's lawsuit (see 1706120016) confirm DARPA's Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program is a final agency action subject to court challenge, Orbital ATK said in a reply (in Pacer) posted Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. Orbital ATK said it wasn't an RSGS program bidder but instead put in noncompliant submissions to the request for proposals to get DARPA to recognize the company's concerns about competing in the commercial space market "with a highly subsidized entity" already promising cheaper pricing due to "the unfair massive injection of taxpayer funds" that is coming from RSGS. Space Systems Loral received the DARPA contract. Orbital ATK said DARPA mischaracterized its arguments and there's no government need for the RSGS program, the evidence being DARPA acknowledgements no federal agencies expressed a need for servicing of their geostationary orbit assets. And Orbital ATK said the court's 1974 decision in National Broiler Council v. Federal Labor Relations Council, also dealing with Administrative Procedures Act claims grounded in an executive order, like Orbital ATK's complaint, establishes its standing. DARPA counsel didn't comment Wednesday.

SiriusXM is now controllable by Amazon Alexa, said the companies in a Tuesday announcement. To tap into Alexa voice control, users enable the SiriusXM skill in the Alexa app and link accounts, said Steve Rabuchin, vice president-Amazon Alexa.

Norsat shareholders are scheduled to vote Thursday on a Hytera Communications bid for the company, as the bidding war between Hytera and Privet Fund Management (see 1706140008) continues. Norsat said in a news release Tuesday it reached an amended definitive agreement for a Hytera takeover. It said it expects to close the deal in Q3, pending security holder, court and regulatory approvals. It said its Hytera agreement includes terms that let it terminate the deal to accept an unsolicited superior proposal, though Hytera has the right to match.

The 2015-2017 dip in commercial geostationary orbit (GSO) satellite communications orders came from temporary challenges, and orders are expected to grow again as operator bullishness improves and the launch environment stabilizes, Northern Sky Research analyst Carolyn Belle blogged Monday. But market pressures still point to operators buying fewer GSO satellites than traditionally, NSR said. "For manufacturers, this means a light at the end of the low order tunnel -- but one less brilliant than when they entered in 2015." It anticipates an average annual order rate of 20 satellites for 2017-2021, growing to 22 satellites annually between 2022-2026 -- levels lower than the 24 satellites annually averaged before 2015.

Beam-forming technology would allow for spectrum sharing in the 37/39 GHz band, so the argument that such sharing between terrestrial wireless and broadband satellite is "inappropriate" doesn't hold water, Boeing said in a docket 14-177 filing posted Monday aimed at a previous Straight Path filing. Boeing said since such millimeter wave spectrum is best suited for small-cell, high-density coverage, the FCC needs to reconsider its decision to adopt a base station power limit for upper microwave flexible use systems 20 times higher than originally purposed, because UMFUS don't need such high-power transmissions and the result would be intra-system interference within and between UMFUS networks. Boeing said while UMFUS likely would employ beam forming and power controls to avoid interference, those steps still should be required to create regulatory certainty. Boeing defended its technical studies that it said demonstrate satellite downlinks won't increase interference appreciably into UMFUS receivers operating in the 37/39 GHz band. Straight Path didn't comment.

ViaSat and OneWeb want to ensure that OneWeb's petition for U.S. market access, which is to be voted on at Thursday's FCC meeting, is kept separate from the agency's ongoing look at updating some satellite rules. ViaSat, in a series of ex parte meetings in recent days with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai, and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn, and with International Bureau staff (see here, here, here and here) pushed for various edits to the draft order. The company argued numerous statements in the draft reach conclusions about issues subject to pending updates to Part 2 and Part 25 rules for nongeostationary orbit (NGSO) constellations, and that the petition could be acted on in ways that don't set up conclusions that are potentially precedential. ViaSat said its requested edits involve whether some ITU provisions the FCC hasn't adopted still satisfy agency obligations to protect Ka-band geostationary orbit constellations from Ka-band NGSO interference. OneWeb also is arguing for a demarcation between its petition and the FCC's ongoing NGSO rulemaking. OneWeb Senior Director-Regulatory Affairs Mariah Shuman told IB acting Chief Tom Sullivan that any issues about NGSO systems should be dealt with in the ongoing NGSO rulemaking, and there shouldn't be any decisions on such items in connection with the OneWeb petition, said an ex parte filing posted Friday. O3b, in a filing last week, also proposed several changes to the OneWeb draft order. The OneWeb item is expected to get a favorable 3-0 decision (see 1706120036).