Treating everyone the same is not fair for levying the regulatory fees on direct broadcast satellite providers and cable operators, Dish and DirecTV said in comments posted Tuesday in docket 15-121. The filings on the FCC’s proposed 12-cents-per-customer direct broadcast satellite (DBS) regulatory fee were in response to comments filed last month by NCTA and the American Cable Association pushing for higher fees to increase parity between what DBS and cable operators pay for FCC regulation. DBS' 12-cents-per-subscriber fee is an eighth of the 95-cents-per-subscriber rate being proposed for cable and Internet Protocol TV providers, with no rationale for why it would be "so disproportionately low," the cable industry groups said in similar comments posted Tuesday.
Matt Daneman
Matt Daneman, Senior Editor, covers pay TV, cable broadband, satellite, and video issues and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications in 2015 after more than 15 years at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, where he covered business among other issues. He also was a correspondent for USA Today. You can follow Daneman on Twitter: @mdaneman
Game Show Network's 2011 move from Cablevision basic cable to a specialty programming tier "was the equivalent of sending it to Siberia," said Paul Schmidt of Covington & Burling Tuesday in opening argument in a carriage complaint hearing before FCC Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel.
LightSquared is hoping the lack of opposition to its plans to transfer licenses to a reorganized version of the company, and to get a waiver of foreign ownership rules, helps speed its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The deadline for initial comments in docket 15-126 was July 1. The company needs to transfer its licenses to a reorganized entity as one of the last steps to getting Bankruptcy Court approval for ending its 38-month-old bankruptcy proceeding. The lack of opposition to the license reassignments "is a positive sign," said a lawyer working with the company. "It certainly shortens the review process."
The set-top box world that has a dominant player, Arris, in the process of buying another major player, Pace, is much different from a few years ago, said industry lawyers in interviews this week. The companies said Monday that the Justice Department has sought more information on the $2.1 billion deal.
Objections to LightSquared plans to hand over wireless licenses to its post-bankruptcy owners faced a midnight July 1 deadline in FCC docket 12-340. Though that change in control is the final piece needed before U.S. Bankruptcy Court can approve the satellite company's emergence from bankruptcy, LightSquared sees just as big a moment coming in 11 weeks, when the results of a study it commissioned on interference issues between GPS services and broadband will be presented to the FCC (see 1506250008). That Roberson & Co. study will be what LightSquared senior adviser Reed Hundt said would be “the best mid-band plan for America.”
Cablevision's attempt to have the Game Show Network carriage complaint against it tossed was shot down by FCC Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel. In an order posted Monday in docket 12-122, Sippel ruled that there are too many contested facts and assertions to warrant the summary decision Cablevision asked for in April (see 1504300051). "Summary decision isn't a procedure that was intended to be used in resolving these complex issues of mixed law and fact," Sippel ruled.
The idea of a hybrid network of low earth orbiting (LEO) and geosynchronous satellites dates back nearly 20 years, but it now has new life with the OneWeb/Intelsat agreement to tie Intelsat's GEO system into OneWeb's planned swarm of 648 Ku-band LEO satellites (see 1506250023). “It’s not a new concept, but it makes a lot of sense," said Clay Mowry, president of Arianespace, which OneWeb hired to do 21 Soyuz rocket launches of its satellites, while contracting Virgin Galactic for another 39 using its LauncherOne.
A massive low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation of Ku-band OneWeb satellites is planned to be put into orbit starting in 2016 that will tie into Intelsat's geostationary orbit satellite network to create a worldwide high-throughput network. OneWeb announced the planned network of more than 600 satellites Thursday. It said it hired Arianespace to do 21 Soyuz launches of its satellites and Virgin Galactic for another 39 using its LauncherOne. It also said it has raised $500 million from a group of companies to help develop broadband technology including the terminals that will allow its LEO satellites to interoperate with Intelsat's GEO satellites. Those investors are Airbus Group, Bharti Enterprises, Coca-Cola, Grupo Salinas, Hughes Network Systems, Intelsat, Qualcomm and Virgin Group.
The small-satellite world is getting bigger in part because technology is making such satellites -- and the costs of launching them -- smaller. "It's really an exciting time," said Andy Hock, Skybox at Google project manager, Thursday on a panel about the small satellite market put together by the Washington Space Business Roundtable.
From cheaper residential Internet delivered unthrottled, to bringing outsourced customer service jobs back to the U.S., Charter Communications has a litany of reasons why its proposed buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable should get FCC OK, said the public interest statement posted Thursday in docket 15-149. The deals worth $89.1 billion are expected to close by year end, giving Charter 19.4 million broadband, 17.3 million video and 9.4 million voice customers in 41 states, the companies said in May when they announced the deal (see 1505260047).