Spectrum Five is yet again hoping to offer direct broadcast service in the U.S. In an FCC International Bureau filing Wednesday, the company asked for a declaratory ruling letting it enter the U.S. market with a Netherlands-authorized satellite operating at 95.15 degrees west. It asked the same in September, days after surrendering its license authorizing launch and operation of a satellite service (see 1609070052), and the bureau in March authorized the petition, but the firm said it then didn't post the required bond. "If this petition is granted, it is able and willing to post the bond," Spectrum Five said now.
Satellite operators with non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) constellation applications before the FCC are starting to provide additional technical details to the International Bureau. The bureau in a series of letters in March to some operators requested supplemental constellation information on such issues as mitigation of orbital debris. ViaSat in a letter Tuesday provided more details about its post-mission disposal plans, giving more technical details about its plans to put its satellites into storage orbit at 8,500 kilometers. Boeing's letter elaborated on its plans for keeping apogee, perigee, inclination and argument of perigee values during the satellites' lifetimes, and more details on its intent to comply with application equivalent power flux density limits. The bureau, meanwhile, gave the company a May 10 deadline for providing a variety of supplemental information about its V-band constellation, including its design and operational strategies for mitigating orbital debris and an analysis of collision risk, in a letter Tuesday to Boeing. Karousel's letter Tuesday cited waivers it foresees needing in the 29.1-29.25 GHz and 29.25-29.5 GHz bands for its NGSO constellation since there's no NGSO designation in the bands, and how it will prevent interference with Iridium operations in the 29.1-29.3 GHz bands. The bureau this week also extended LeoSat's deadline to May 15 for it to give more information about the status of the French licensing authority's review of the orbital debris mitigation plans of LeoSat's constellation and an analysis of collision risk during the passive disposal phase. Boeing separately emailed us that its NGSO plans are "in full accordance with FCC requirements and precedent" -- in response to allegations by ViaSat that pending V- and Ka-band constellation applications from Boeing, SpaceX and O3b don't meet FCC requirements (see 1704110028).
Connect America Fund Phase II bid weighting rules adopted in February (see 1702230019) "will effectively preclude" satellite operators from taking part in the reverse auction, which will hurt American consumers, Hughes Network Systems told the FCC. In an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-90, the company recapped a meeting between Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner and an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at which the company said satellite is too heavily handicapped by the weights given to latency and baseline 25/3 Mbps service.
Globalstar is asking for a series of minor license modifications needed to implement its planned terrestrial wireless broadband network. In an FCC International Bureau license modification application filed Tuesday, Globalstar said the modifications are for its satellite constellation license, its earth station gateways in the continental U.S. and Alaska, its blanket license for operating mobile earth station terminals and its licenses for its earth station gateway in Puerto Rico.
Satellite operator revenue dropped by close to 3 percent in 2016 largely on data market pricing, while some operators dug into their cash on hand for acquisitions or paying down debt, Northern Sky Research said in a news release Tuesday. "Operators are making big, potentially risky plays," including SES taking full ownership of O3b and RR Media, OneWeb combining with Intelsat, Telesat's move toward low earth orbit high-throughput satellites and the proposed geostationary high-throughput satellite constellation spearheaded by APT Satellite, it said. The researcher said 2016 saw satellite operators try to compete better in international data and mobility markets through big discounts on bulk contracts.
To bolster the case for additional satellite spectrum, EchoStar and its Hughes Network Systems submitted a white paper posted Monday in FCC docket 14-177 laying out the history of Hughes' broadband satellite services. The point is to give more context as the FCC looks at spectrum rules above 24 GHz to help ensure "a technology neutral regulatory regime," it said. EchoStar/Hughes said it has seen in the past decade rapid growth in satellite capacity, from its 1 Gbps being its highest capacity satellite in 2006-2007 to today's offerings of 220 Gbps, and huge growth in the maximum number of spot beams per satellite. They said improvements in coding and spectral efficiency are "reaching a point of diminishing returns." The companies said the Ka-band is largely maxed out, requiring migration to the Q and V bands.
Swedish Space Corp. and BridgeSat agreed to a long-term partnership for BridgeSat to install its satellite optical communications equipment at some SSC earth stations and the two partnering commercially, they said in a news release Friday. "Optical communications is well suited when satellite operators need to downlink large quantities of data, but have limited access to RF spectrum," said SSC President-Satellite Management Services Leif Österbo.
Recent criticisms of Ligado's proposed satellite/terrestrial LTE network are part of "how the game works," said Chief Legal Officer Valerie Green in an opinion piece Friday in The Hill. "Building this network is good for America and important for our future. Study after study has shown it can be done safely and effectively .... For anyone who still has concerns, we’ve made it clear that our door is always open." She said Ligado's network fits squarely into digital infrastructure that could be part of any infrastructure spending bill. The Green piece follows a column earlier last week in The Hill by Robert McDowell of Cooley criticizing the LTE plans (see 1704050055). In an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 11-109, Ligado recapped a meeting between Green and aides to Chairman Ajit Pai in which it again called for a proposed rulemaking regarding terrestrial commercial sharing of the 1675-1680 MHz band used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (see 1608120033) and discussed its work with the Federal Aviation Administration on establishing power limits in the 1526-1536 MHz band that would protect GPS devices including noncertified aviation receivers.
Qantas is offering "free, gate-to-gate in-flight Wi-Fi" on one ViaSat-equipped Boeing 737-800 aircraft, and plans to install ViaSat equipment on all its Boeing 737 and Airbus A330 aircraft starting later this year, it said in a news release Friday. Qantas said it, ViaSat and broadband network service provider nbn have been doing in-flight Wi-Fi tests on the aircraft for some weeks.
Satellite backhaul demands skyrocketed in 2016, but the satellite industry needs mainstream mobile operators, not just early adopters, to get significant growth, said Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm-Serra in an NSR blog post Thursday. NSR said better satellite pricing plus smart terminals made satellite an increasingly competitive option for backhaul needs at high-speed low-volume sites, but "cheap capacity and technology per se won’t make this market thrive." It said those pricing and technology issues are opening the door to satellite use cases beyond traditional rural coverage and into network resiliency, traffic offload or sporadic-traffic sites.