Hughes is planning five gateway earth stations to communicate with the Telstar 19 Vantage (T19V) satellite at 63 degrees west, it said in FCC International Bureau filings (see here, here, here, here and here) Tuesday. The gateways will each consist of four 8.1-meter earth station antennas and a 5.6-meter earth station antenna, it said. The satellite is scheduled to go up in Q1 2018, Hughes said, with the earth stations to be used for feeder link services needed for T19V's consumer services to Latin America. The gateway earth station sites will be in Riverside, California; Monee, Illinois; North Platte, Nebraska; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Spokane, Washington, and operate at 27.85-28.6 and 29.25-30 GHz uplinks and 18.3-18.8 and 19.7-20.2 GHz downlinks, it said.

The FCC International Bureau rejected as defective an AT&T application for a fixed earth station, but it can be re-filed. AT&T's Jan. 4 application indicated the power density at the input of the antenna flange would exceed limits set in FCC rules and thus doesn't meet FCC licensing criteria for authority to communicate with permitted satellites, the bureau said in a letter-decision Tuesday. AT&T didn't comment Wednesday.

Any Wi-Fi-equipped device should be easily upgradable to operate on channel 14, and terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) access points and client devices certified to operate there will still meet FCC out-of-band emissions requirements for operating on channel 11, Globalstar General Counsel Barbee Ponder told FCC officials, according to an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 13-213. According to Globalstar, Ponder said some client devices might need a hardware modification for commercially acceptable performance on channel 14, but Globalstar isn't aware of what those devices are. Ponder also said the company's TLPS access points will require connection to and authentication by its network operating system in order to operate on channel 14, and through that the company can stop or end any TLPS access point operations that are in an unauthorized location. Among officials at the meeting was Jose Albuquerque, chief of the International Bureau Satellite Division, said the company.

With a second report and order on 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band being considered for adoption (see 1603110083), satellite industry representatives met with FCC staff including International Bureau Satellite Division Chief Jose Albuquerque to talk about protecting in-band and adjacent band satellite earth stations from interference and about dealing with such interference, the Satellite Industry Association (SIA) said in an ex parte filing in docket 12-354 Tuesday. Satellite officials at the meeting included SIA President Tom Stroup and representatives from Boeing, DirecTV, Intelsat, Lockheed Martin, O3b and SES.

The 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld LightSquared's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan, shooting down an appeal by former LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja, who was a major stakeholder in the company. In a summary order Tuesday, the 2nd Circuit rejected Ahuja's argument the plan wasn't fair because it overpaid some senior creditors with undervalued equity in the reorganized company, saying the court's conclusion "was premised on extensive factual findings, including ... the significant regulatory risks involved." The 2nd Circuit also rejected his argument of unequal treatment, saying the plan canceled the interests of all common equity holders, and Harbinger Capital received value for its secured claim, not its common equity interests.

The FCC signed off on an amendment to the proxy agreement that has JPMorgan Chase putting its stake in the former LightSquared into a proxy (see 1512040039). In an order Wednesday in docket 15-126, the agency said it had no objection to an $80,000 per year increase in the proxy agent's annual compensation, to $200,000. The order was signed by the chiefs of the International, Wireless and Wireline bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology.

Dish Network will request arbitration of its retransmission consent dispute with NBCUniversal, Dish said in a news release Friday. “This notice triggers a mandatory 10-day ‘cooling off period' during which DISH and NBCUniversal can continue negotiating and affected programming is required to remain available to DISH customers.” A programmer website run by NBCU now says: “This dispute is in the process of being resolved.” Dish previously sued NBCU over messages on that website (see 1603150053). Dish said it's “committed to reaching a new distribution agreement with NBCUniversal and to not disrupt customers in the process.”

While it waits for permanent approval to operate its StarFire precision farming system mobile earth stations at 1545.9675 and 1545.9775 MHz, Deere is asking the FCC International Bureau for special temporary authority to operate them on a receive-only, non-common carrier basis at those frequencies with a pair of Inmarsat satellites. In a pair of IB filings Thursday (see here and here), Deere said the STA would be in conjunction with downlinks from other Inmarsat geostationary satellites already authorized.

To make up the ground segment of its Lemur satellite system, Spire Global is asking the FCC International Bureau for authority to operate 13 earth stations scattered around the U.S. In its IB filing Wednesday, Spire said Lemur will provide maritime and meteorological monitoring and earth imaging services, and needs authority to use the 402-403 MHz band for uplinks and the 2020-2025 MHz band for downlinks. The company said its use of 402-403 will be of limited duration and is unlikely to cause interference because of the infrequent transmissions. It said its use of 2020-2025 MHz also is unlikely to cause interference since the spectrum "is currently fallow." Spire said it asked for additional frequency authorization for its Phase II Lemur satellites, but those won't be deployed in the immediate future so it isn't seeking authority to use those frequencies with the proposed earth stations.

The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (PISC) is backing the placement of Ligado Networks' application on FCC public notice. In a filing Thursday in docket 12-340, the PISC said the former LightSquared's service rules included public interest obligations that now aren't suitable given Ligado's proposed service rules or would need major modification. Any PN should seek comment on how to modify the public interest obligations to promote competition, access to spectrum for businesses owned by women and minorities, and deployment of wireless services in rural areas, it said. PISC is made up of the Center for Rural Strategies, Common Cause, New America's Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. Ligado and numerous others also have backed a PN seeking comment on the company's license modification applications (see 1603070051, 1602120052 and 1602100057).