With its Jupiter 2 satellite scheduled to launch in December, Hughes Network Systems is seeking permission to operate it at 97.1 degrees west. In an FCC International Bureau filing Friday, Hughes said the Ka-band satellite -- which will provide broadband services -- already is authorized by Papua New Guinea for launch and for operation at 97.1 degrees west and authorized for U.S. market access, but the company wants to relicense Jupiter 2 as a U.S.-flagged satellite.

Gogo wants FCC permission for up to 200 earth station aboard aircraft (ESAA) terminals communicating with Intelsat 20, which orbits at 68.5 degrees east. In an International Bureau filing Friday, Gogo said its requested special temporary authority will let it respond to Middle East customer demand. The company said it's also preparing an application to modify its ESAA license to add satellites as points of communication.

Intelsat's Galaxy 11 could be on the move again, The company asked the FCC International Bureau for special temporary authority (STA) to drift it from 60.1 degrees east to 45 degrees east, operate it temporarily there, and then drift it to 44.9 degrees east for its final location. According to Intelsat's IB filing Thursday, the satellite -- licensed to permanently operate at 55.6 degrees west -- is expected to arrive at 45 degrees east in mid October, and once there pick up some of the traffic now carried by Intelsat 12. The company said it expects to file a permanent modification application to operate the satellite at 44.9 degrees east. Intelsat in February asked for STA to operate Galaxy 11 at 60.1 degrees east (see 1602110003) -- a request granted in May.

Qualcomm said it’s supporting the European Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) across its product portfolios. The company began implementing hardware support for Galileo several years ago in select chipsets, and now offers what it called the industry's first “pervasive,” end-to-end location-services platform for smartphone, computing, infotainment, telematics and IoT applications. The Qualcomm IZat location services platform uses up to six satellite constellations concurrently without incremental device hardware or cost, and users benefit from more than 80 different satellites when calculating global position for navigation or location-based applications, Qualcomm said Tuesday. The addition of another GNSS is intended to provide more accurate location performance, faster time-to-first-fix, and improved robustness worldwide, “particularly in challenging urban environments where the combination of narrow streets and tall buildings can reduce accuracy,” the company said. The feature is integrated in the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, 600 and 400 processors and modems, and Galileo will be supported on smartphones and compute devices through software releases for Snapdragon 820, 652, 650, 625, 617 and 435 processors; automotive infotainment solutions incorporating Snapdragon 820A; telematics and IoT solutions with Snapdragon X16, X12, X7 and X5 LTE modems; and Qualcomm 9x15 and MDM6x00 modems, said the company.

Under a “speakeasy” theme, Pepcom’s Digital Experience news-media event last week in New York featured IoT technologies from a range of companies. Among those was EchoStar's Hughes, showing its first connected home product. The Sage by Hughes security and smart home system, launched at CES 2015, hit stores in early March. Sage is in a “slow rollout,” a company spokeswoman told us. It was designed to be do it yourself and is available from www.sagebyhughes.com, she said. The hub communicates with ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices to give the product a “long road map,” said the spokeswoman. It has a 911 feature that directly links customers upon alert to their home's emergency call center regardless of the homeowner's location. Other companies at Thursday's event were Savant and Uber.

A U.S. District Court in Orlando, pointing to the recommendation of a U.S. magistrate judge, Wednesday ordered (in Pacer) TV Net Solutions and co-founder/CEO Mohammad Mustafa to pay Dish Network $4.975 million. Dish sued TNS in 2012, alleging it was distributing foreign-language TV channels to which Dish had exclusive rights. In a report (in Pacer) and recommendation in April, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Smith said TNS continues to provide equipment and service allowing access to the infringing programming despite a 2014 settlement, and recommended the court partially grant Dish's motion for default final judgment. Smith also recommended against Dish's request to be awarded attorney's fees and costs, saying there was no indication the settlement agreement provides an award of fees, and against an injunction, saying the public interest would better be served by Dish's filing a motion to reopen the 2012 case so Dish can request commencement of a contempt proceeding. Mustafa told us Thursday that TNS originally tried to buy the Arabic TV content but was unable to successfully sign a deal with the programmer, and the Dish settlement and its subsequent dropping of programming led to the it shutting down in early 2015. However, TNS' Facebook page indicates it was still active as of earlier this month.

The FCC International Bureau laid out its goals for processing times for earth station applications. In a public notice Tuesday, the bureau's satellite division said applications for an initial earth station authorization or an authorization modification will be put on public notice within 45 days of confirmation of receipt of payment and acted on within 60 days after close of the comment period. It also said applications for initial registration of receive-only earth stations or for registration modifications will be put on public notice within 30 days and acted on within 45 days, and applications for special temporary authority for earth stations will be put on public notice within 14 days and acted on within 30 days. Requests that don't require public notice will like be acted on within 30 days, bureau said. The bureau said it committed to setting processing-time guidelines as part of its Part 25 order in December (see 1512170036).

Given the pending launch of the first satellites in Iridium's Next constellation (see 1606140026), the need for and public benefit of more spectrum is growing, the satellite company told FCC International Bureau staff as it pushed its proposal for sharing the 1616-1618.725 MHz band with Globalstar (see 1504230054), said an ex parte filing Wednesday in RM-11685. Iridium said it told the bureau that Next's design is intended to protect radio astronomy services, so any dismissal of company's petition based on concern about its effect on RAS "would be premature."

That commissioners got a chance to vote on the FCC's latest Open-Market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications (Orbit) Act report to Congress raises the question of why similar agency reports don't follow the same procedure, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said. The FCC issued its 17th annual status report on the privatization status of Inmarsat, Intelsat and New Skies Tuesday. It was unanimously approved by commissioners, with O'Rielly and Commissioner Ajit Pai issuing separate statements. The report said the FCC over the past year has taken part in numerous international satellite coordination negotiations with Russia as Intelsat's licensing administration, while the company signed operational arrangements with satellite operators licensed by seven nations, which will in turn lead to coordination agreements between the U.S. and the pertinent foreign administrations. The FCC said during the past year it also granted a number of Inmarsat earth station licenses and approved other earth stations' authority to communicate with satellites from New Skies, an Intelsat spin-off. Several past reports have said Inmarsat and Intelsat have fully transitioned to privatized operations. Pai has said the Orbit Act reports have outlived their usefulness (see 1506100062) and he repeated that Tuesday in a brief statement, saying "There's no need to reinvent the wheel." O'Rielly said he proposed a similar process for all delegated authority matters before the agency: "Alas, this reasonable process reform has been summarily rejected to date."

SES and O3b Networks jointly finished the first O3b managed services installation for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service Office in American Samoa, SES said in a news release Tuesday. The station will provide tropical weather alerts and cyclone warning information for much of the Pacific, with O3b providing a low latency link between it and the primary Pacific National Weather Service center in Hawaii, SES said.