The increased capacity in the satellite universe will mean challenges for satellite operators focused on traditional wide-beam coverage, Intelsat CEO Stephen Spengler said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference Wednesday. "People putting up standard wide-beam capacity, they are going to have [internal rate of return] challenges when it comes to replacing those satellites," Spengler said. "It is not a sustainable model." He said Intelsat is moving to a model of its high-throughput Epic constellation providing spot beam coverage in dense areas of high demand, and using wide-beam coverage in areas like ocean coverage. Spengler said North America is a little-changed market for media distribution and direct-to-home coverage, and Ultra HD is coming but "slow in developing." The company's North American broadcaster and programmer customers are taking their time planning for Ultra HD, given higher production costs and the expense of Ultra HD infrastructure, he said, saying Ultra HD might be more readily adopted by over-the-top providers. Spengler said he sees a long tail for media distribution via satellite despite the growing prevalence of fiber networks due to the large number of communities off the fiber grid or that lack sufficient fiber connectivity. Close to 5,000 cable headends are served by satellite and a sizable number will remain "well into the next decade," he said.

OneWeb is willing to work with Boeing, though adding another large non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation to the orbital altitude where OneWeb wants to put its constellation "would present physical coordination challenges," satellite company officials told FCC International Bureau staffers, including Satellite Division Chief Jose Albuquerque, said an ex parte filing Monday. Both companies are planning NGSO constellations at roughly 1,200 km nominal altitude (see 1608290063). OneWeb discussed the U.K. Space Agency's regulatory oversight of its orbital debris mitigation plan. The company said it's required under U.K. regulations to demonstrate it has "a clear understanding" of hazards of building and constructing its constellation and has made "a reasonable attempt" to limit those hazards. The company said internal requirements would exceed regulatory requirements in mission and satellite design, and its satellites will include a strong radar signature for easier independent tracking, electric ion propulsion, active conjunction monitoring and maneuvering from launch to re-entry, with atmospheric re-entry within five years of decommissioning. Boeing in a statement Tuesday pointed to its previous assertions that the two could operate their constellations at or near 1,200 km through slight adjustments in the planned constellation altitudes (see 1608290063). It also said, based on preliminary talks with OneWeb representatives and FCC officials, it doesn't plan to operate its constellation "using an overlapping orbital altitude" with OneWeb's, but would work with the company and FCC to find orbital altitudes for each that don't overlap and include sufficient margin to prevent collision events. Boeing said it "has substantial experience with [low earth orbit] satellite management through its stewardship of the Iridium constellation for more than 15 years [and] plans to work with other operators of proposed LEO constellations to coordinate physical operations between and among systems, facilitate greater use of space and meet all applicable regulatory requirements."

The Part 25 satellite rules changes the FCC ordered in December (see 1512170036) need clarification or correction regarding U.S. market access requests, SES said in a petition for reconsideration Tuesday in docket 12-267. The FCC's decision to defer processing of a U.S. market access request deemed mutually exclusive with a prior filing by a U.S. licensee conflicts with agency precedent and lets a U.S. filer block a foreign satellite licensee from starting service for U.S. customers, SES said. If the foreign licensee has ITU priority, the U.S. filer might not be able to provide service even if gets licensed, SES said. The company said holding U.S. market requests in abeyance pending resolution of the two-step U.S. licensing process "is all the more puzzling" since FCC precedent determined that granting a U.S. license doesn't preclude granting market access to a foreign licensee with ITU priority. Instead, SES said, the FCC should consider U.S. market access requests as they're received, regardless of whether a potentially conflicting U.S. filing has been submitted. At the very least, it said, the FCC should make a parallel process where a foreign licensee can get queue priority.

ViaSat got a $33.3 million contract from the Defense Department's Space and Missile Systems Center for the Protected Tactical Service Field Demonstration, which will demonstrate the ability to provide wideband anti-jam communications to tactical users of both government and commercial satellites. In a news release Monday, the company said the program includes development of a protected tactical waveform modem and an embedded cryptographic unit. The work is expected to be done by Sept. 30, 2020.

A federal judge tentatively signed off on a settlement in a class-action complaint alleging Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) violations by Dish Network and background check company Sterling Infosystems, said a preliminary settlement approval order (in Pacer) filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Judge Lorna Schofield said the settlement authorization class will be all Dish contractor technicians who were subject to a Dish consumer report after Nov. 30, 2010, and who received forms 2 or 3 before Dish received the summary consumer report but weren't provided any other relevant forms. The adverse action class will be all Dish contractor technicians or technician applicants whose summary consumer reports were given to Dish and who were adjudicated as "high" risk after Nov. 30, 2010.A final hearing Jan. 17 will determine whether the final settlement is fair and to consider any objections. The 2012 lawsuit alleges Dish and background check company Sterling violated the federal FCRA in their use of credit reports to do background checks on prospective employees or subcontractors (see 1512160017). The joint settlement motion (in Pacer) filed in August said Dish and Sterling agreed to put $1.175 million into a settlement fund, with the money minus fees and expenses to be distributed pro rata to settlement class members who submit claim forms, with adverse action class members receiving allocations of six times the amount that goes to authorization class members.

Former LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja took his fight against the company's Chapter 11 reorganization to the Supreme Court, according to a 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals notice posted Monday of an August writ of certiorari filing. Ahuja -- a major shareholder in the company now known as Ligado -- challenged the reorganization plan, arguing it wasn't fair because it overpaid some senior creditors with undervalued equity in the reorganized company, but the 2nd Circuit in May denied his petition for rehearing (see 1605120001).

Section 2.106 of FCC own rules limits deployment in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band to fixed service, broadcast satellite service and fixed satellite service, not mobile satellite service, meaning OneWeb's planned non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation should be denied, MVDDS 5G Coalition representatives told FCC staffers, according to an ex parte filing Friday in the OneWeb proceeding. The coalition said the OneWeb application isn't in the public interest because its use of 12.2-12.7 GHz "would essentially destroy any realistic prospect of MVDDS rollout" because of the inability of MVDDS and NGSO to coexist under current rules due to NGSO satellite receivers receiving interference from MVDDS transmitters. Since OneWeb proposes mobile service, that "makes the death blow to MVDDS that much more definitive" because the precise locations and operating times for the receivers would be unknown, MVDDS 5G said. The additional 5,400 MHz of spectrum OneWeb seeks outside 12.2-12.7 MHz band should more than suffice, coalition members said. Representing the group were Dish Network staffers including Deputy General Counsel Jeff Blum. Representing the FCC at the meeting were staffers including International Bureau Satellite Division Chief Jose Albuquerque and Wireless Bureau Chief Engineer Chris Helzer. OneWeb didn't comment Monday.

FCC-proposed requirements for “top level menu access of closed caption display controls” are “premature,” EchoStar said in a letter posted in docket 12-108 Monday. “Rather than adopting additional regulations, the Commission should encourage innovative accessibility features and designs for set top boxes and digital apparatus that are in-process." The FCC should “reconsider the need for any additional rules after all stakeholders have had a chance to assess the results of these new features,” EchoStar said. It also said the FCC should “provide maximum flexibility in developing usable, compliant solutions, and reject 'single step' solution mandates that are not warranted.” AT&T and NCTA Monday also expressed concerns on a draft set-top box order now on circulation (see 1609190048).

SES wants U.S. market access for its Brazilian-licensed SES-14 satellite so as to provide direct-to-home service there, the company said in an FCC International Bureau application Friday: SES-14 would serve the U.S. market in the C- and Ku-bands from 47.5 degrees west and supplement C- and Ku-band service being provided by NSS-806.

DirecTV and MasTec Advanced Technologies, one of its contractors, were out of bounds firing a group of employees who griped to a Florida TV news station about pay policies, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday, upholding a 2011 National Labor Relations Board ruling. DirecTV and MasTec said the workers' comments weren't protected concerted activity because of malicious untruths and flagrant disloyalty. Judges Judith Rogers and Sri Srinivasan -- who wrote the majority opinion (in Pacer) -- said the court's interest isn't where that line between protected and unprotected activity sits but on the correctness of NLRB's finding that the workers' appeal is on the protected side of that line. Judge Janice Brown dissented. The pay policy required MasTec installers to hook up DirecTV set-top boxes to customer phone lines, with MasTec setting up financial incentives and punishments for hook-up quotas, the D.C. Circuit ruling said. MasTec fired nearly all technicians who were part of a TV news broadcast about the policy, the court said. An NLRB administrative law judge said going public is protected activity, but their statements were so disloyal and disparaging that they weren't protected. The full NLRB disagreed that the comments to the TV news crew reached that level. Judges' decision Friday said MasTec workers' on-air comments "were neither so disloyal and incommensurate with their labor grievances nor so maliciously untrue as to fall outside" of National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protections. They also dismissed DirecTV arguments that because the direct broadcast satellite company is the fired workers' employer's customer, the workers had no protected rights to criticize it, ruling DirecTV clearly committed an unfair labor practice in causing MasTec to do the firings. In her dissent, Brown said the workers crossed the line from labor dispute to public disparagement aimed at eroding the companies' reputations. "This is not a close case," Brown said, pointing to the workers' telling the station that MasTec was requiring them to lie to customers when it had not done so, and was trying to have them scare customers into accepting the service: "By soberly repeating that joke to a public audience without its context and as though it were a serious instruction, these technicians left the NLRA and its protections behind." DirecTV in a statement said it agreed with the dissent and is "considering [its] options.” MasTec didn't comment.