The FCC International Bureau OK'd AMS Spectrum Holdings' buy of Critical Alert Systems' earth station license as part of AMS' buy of CAS' paging business, with a grant of the license transfer approved Tuesday. AMS said the CAS purchase would complement its existing services and open the door to new customers.
Herring Networks' One America News Network and A Wealth of Entertainment channels are now on DirecTV's lineup and will become part of DirecTV Now within weeks, Herring said in a news release Wednesday.
Teleport operators generally see commercial and operational performance of satellite operators up in 2017 over 2016, the World Teleport Association said in a news release Monday. WTA said teleport operators say that satellite operators' commercial performance is up 9 percent over 2016, while operational performance is up 11 percent. WTA said the level of satellite operator interference with teleport operators for offering of managed services varies by company, with Intelsat and SES being frequent competitors. The group said teleport operators see less competitive threat from satellite operators in 2017 than in 2016, though that competition was seen as less fair than it was in 2016.
Intelsat wants to move its Intelsat 5 satellite from 157 to 156.9 degrees east to make room for Telkom-2, it said in an FCC International Bureau filing Friday. Intelsat said Telkom-2 is expected to arrive at 157 degrees east in early June and Intelsat 5 relocation should start on April 30. The company in January sought bureau approval for authority to operate Telkom-2.
Big data via satellite applications generated $580 million in retail revenue in 2016, and could hit nearly $2.4 billion by 2026, Northern Sky Research (NSR) said in a news release posted Monday. That growth will require satellite operators to integrate, process and analyze an increasing range of data from earth observation and IoT sources, it said. NSR said new satellite technology is leading to lower data acquisition, storage and processing costs.
ViaSat wants permission to deploy 4 million 0.75-meter and 10,000 1.8-meter fixed earth stations. In an International Bureau application Friday, the company said the earth station network will communicate with ViaSat's existing Ka-band constellation and ViaSat-2, scheduled to launch this month, for broadband provision. It said the network would use Ka-band spectrum already authorized. ViaSat said the 0.75-meter earth stations would be a variation of an already licensed earth station model. It wanted a waiver of Section 25 rules regarding blanket licenses so as to allow earth stations to operate at 17.7-18.3 GHz, 18.8-19.3 GHz, and 28.6-29.1 GHz without specifying their locations.
With the pace of commercial space launch activity and the number of launch companies expected to grow in coming years, streamlining launch spectrum licensing through allocating spectrum for commercial space launches would help, SpaceX officials told an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in an ex parte meeting recapped in a docket 13-115 filing posted Thursday. At the meeting were Vice President-Satellite Government Affairs Patricia Cooper and Director-Government Affairs Mat Dunn. SpaceX previously met with Chairman Ajit Pai to push the NTIA proposal for launch spectrum allocation (see 1703140048).
Satellite interests are pushing the FCC to adopt rules on satellite/upper microwave flexible use system (UMFUS) sharing in the 28 GHz and 37/39 GHz bands. In a docket 14-177 ex parte filing posted Wednesday. operators pitched reduction in maximum base station power limits for UMFUS and a requirement for UMFUS use of beam forming and power control. They said such steps are needed to ensure UMFUS doesn't cause aggregate interference to satellites in the 28 GHz band and to aid opportunistic sharing between UMFUS and satellite receivers in the 37/39 GHz bands. The spectrum frontiers record makes clear UMFUS is likely to take such steps to prevent interference with their own networks, so including them in rules creates more certainty about the possibility of spectrum sharing, the satellite operators said. The filing recapped a meeting involving International Bureau personnel including Satellite Division head Jose Albuquerque with EchoStar Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner, Inmarsat Director-Regulatory Giselle Creeser, OneWeb Policy Director Marc Dupuis, O3b regulatory counsel William Lewis, Intelsat Spectrum Policy-Americas Manager Alexander Gerdenitsch and Boeing outside counsel Bruce Olcott of Jones Day.
Aireon and Enaire are talking about a satellite-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) air traffic monitoring system for the Spanish air navigation manager, Aireon said in a news release Thursday announcing a memorandum of agreement between the two. Aireon said its ADS-B system is scheduled for a 2018 completion, following deployment of Iridium's Next constellation.
Hughes Network's HughesNet Gen5 satellite broadband service is now available through the General Services Administration's IT Schedule 70, a list of vendors that GSA has preauthorized to provide IT equipment, software and services to government agencies, Hughes said in a news release Thursday.