Iridium's claims that Ligado's proposed broadband terrestrial network is a significant interference risk to its operation in adjacent spectrum (see 1612140061) are based on a flawed model and don't make sense since its ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) operations would better protect Iridium than its satellite-only operations, Ligado said in a filing to be posted Tuesday in FCC docket 11-109. It included a 33-page technical paper in response to Iridium's technical analysis, with Ligado challenging the propagation models Iridium used. Ligado said Iridium has no legal basis for pushing for protection since its mobile satellite service (MSS) downlinks are secondary to Ligado's ancillary terrestrial service, and said the FCC had made clear in different proceedings on Iridium MSS operations and adjacent-band operations that the downlinks were secondary. Ligado said if it didn't get FCC approval to launch ATC services in the lower 10 MHz uplink channel, it would use the band for MSS service to the maximum power and out-of-band emission limits in its license, which are substantially higher than the ATC limits in its application. Ligado said Iridium's analysis ignores the real-world operational and regulatory environment such as the millions of mobile earth station devices currently deployed in the L-band at higher power levels than Ligado's proposed 0.2 watt user terminals. If Iridium's interference analysis was correct, Ligado said, those millions of devices "would be destroying Iridium's service," and that they're not illustrates the flaws in that company's analysis that the FCC should dismiss as "facially absurd ... confabulated spectrum concerns." Iridium didn't comment.

In the five weeks since AT&T's launch of DirecTV Now, the streaming service was holding up better than competing services in download trends, said a Tuesday UBS report. AT&T beefed up marketing efforts for DirecTV Now in mid-December, advertising that the $35-per-month promo rate would end Jan. 9, but extending the free trial to 30 days from seven. That allowed its iPad ranking to hold up “better than peers” -- including Verizon’s Go90, Sling TV and Showtime, the analysts said. They expect the DirecTV Now app and content to soon add DVR service and multistream capability. The primary issues facing DirecTV Now are user experience and quality as the service scales, said the report. DirecTV Now's success could have “far-reaching implications for the industry, potentially accelerating fixed/wireless convergence in the U.S.,” it said, as management uses the streaming product to gain wireless share in 2017 and unveils new bundles that could “change the trend in postpaid handsets.”

Globalstar plans to move all its second-generation satellites to eight orbital planes while keeping its eight remaining first-generation satellites in their current orbital configurations, the company told the FCC International Bureau in a notification Thursday. An FCC modification order in 2011 permitted Globalstar to operate a 32-satellite configuration -- using first- and second-generation satellites -- over eight orbital planes plus a separate 16-satellite configuration using solely its first-generation satellites, the company said. Since that order, multiple first-generation satellites have been retired, the company said, saying it will do the reconfiguration over about 11 weeks, with the work starting about Jan. 22. The FCC last month approved Globalstar's proposal for terrestrial use of 11.5 MHz of its licensed satellite spectrum for low-power mobile broadband (see 1612230060).

Administrative oversight caused Ligado to inadvertently let the license lapse for its MSAT-2 satellite, the company said in a pair of FCC International Bureau filings (see here and here) Thursday, asking for reinstatement of its license and special temporary authority to operate in the meantime. Ligado said since its original authorization lapsed in 2011, it filed requests for five years straight asking that its license be modified for an additional year, with the most recent being until Dec. 31, 2016. The company said it and its counsel are taking steps to make sure such oversight doesn't happen again, such as instituting a deadline management system.

In-flight and maritime connectivity company Global Eagle Entertainment bought the Ku-band payload on an SES satellite and will rebrand the satellite as Eagle-1, GEE said in a news release Friday. It's aimed at boosting capacity for its North American, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico customers, the company said.

Comments on an FCC proposal to quit acting as accounting authority between earth or coast stations and ships engaged in international maritime mobile communications are due in 60 days, replies in 90 days, said a notice to be published in Friday's Federal Register. The FCC issued a second Further NPRM earlier this month (see 1701030002).

Dish Network's stance that neither the Telephone Consumer Protection Act nor the Federal Tort Claims Act spells out injunctive relief that involves other than traditional, four-part equitable test standards is hardly radical, Dish said in a motion (in Pacer) for leave Wednesday. It asked to be able reply to the DOJ's and FTC's proposed responsive conclusions of law filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Illinois, in advance of the second phase of the Dish robocall violations trial there (see 1701050045). The company said in its proposed reply that DOJ/FTC haven't contested its showing the injunction they seek would disproportionately harm the company, while harms caused by TCPA and Telemarketing Sales Rule violations "are not substantial." At most, "a modest civil penalty is warranted, because Dish's participation in the telemarketing violations was minimal" since the vast majority of the violations were by a handful of retailers, it said. The federal agencies didn't comment Thursday.

With some satellite providers having pending and forthcoming satellite and ground station license requests, the FCC should within the next 90 days issue a public notice on earth station siting and open a docket about potential aggregation interference into satellites, said the Satellite Industry Association in an ex parte meeting this week. SIA said the proposed PN about rules for siting in the 28 GHz and 37/39 GHz bands and methodology for figuring out interference zones comes as the FCC already has said it needs to refine the existing earth station requirements put forward in the spectrum frontiers report and order. It said opening a docket about aggregate interference from upper microwave fixed use services (UMFUS) in the 28 GHz bands would allow filling out the record on such issues as planned UMFUS operations and sharing approaches to protect current and future satellite operations. An ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 14-177 recapped a meeting between Commissioner Ajit Pai aide Brendan Carr and representatives of SIA, SpaceX and EchoStar.

The billionaire investors backing space launch ventures like SpaceX and Blue Origin "are a market distortion," attracting other investors to businesses chock full of risk and uncertainty, said Carissa Christensen, managing partner of satellite consulting firm Tauri Group, during a Transportation Research Board panel Tuesday on the commercial space industry. "Those individuals are having a very big effect." She said traditional satellite operators are a mature, stable industry attracting mainstream financial investment, but the growing boom in smallsats is attracting a new type of commercial space investor in the form of venture capitalists. The last couple of years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of VC firms getting into commercial space ventures, she said. The smallsat boom is also creating a different supply chain than traditional satellite operators have used, with a focus on building smallsats from relatively available components instead of custom parts and thus letting companies that aren't vertically integrated enter the market, said Jason Crusan, NASA director-advanced exploration systems division.

Satellite operators embracing high-throughput satellites (HTS) also are potentially jeopardizing the steady revenue and profit growth they enjoy from traditional fixed satellite services, S&P Global Ratings said in a news release Tuesday. S&P said satellite operators need to pursue HTS to remain competitive with fiber alternatives, but HTS will lead to a capacity oversupply that will depress pricing and that growth in the nautical and aviation markets likely isn't enough to offset. The ratings firm said growing capacity supply is leading to dropping revenue backlogs and transponder utilization rates. It said ratings on satellite companies with particular business concentrations in traditional voice and data services could be pressured for three to five years.