Globalstar took its case for its broadband terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) to the FCC's eighth floor, with a series of meetings with commissioners and their staff in recent days, said an ex parte filing Wednesday in docket 13-213. The filing recapped talks between Globalstar General Counsel Barbee Ponder and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mike O'Rielly and with aides to commissioners Ajit Pai and Mignon Clyburn. The company said it discussed its "continuing commitment to the success of its mobile satellite service," pointing to the deployment this year of its second-generation ground network. It also said it discussed TLPS public interest benefits as it helps ease congestion "diminishing the quality of 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi service at high-traffic 802.11 hotspots and other locations." Pointing to TLPS being a "good neighbor" to licensed and unlicensed services, Globalstar said "the evidence of benefits and compatibility ... substantially outweigh the theoretical concerns raised by competitors," and interference detection and mitigation techniques will be part of TLPS. It criticized Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) for not giving it or the FCC data from its demonstration supposedly showing TLPS interference to Bluetooth devices (see 1503130015), calling that "telling." Bluetooth SIG didn't comment Thursday. Globalstar said it supports a staged TLPS deployment since that would allow gradual expansion of operations "while providing extra safeguards to existing licensed and unlicensed services." FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has circulated a TLPS report and order that would do that (see 1605130059 and 1605200022).

SES and iN Demand renewed their capacity agreement for the pay-per-view and VOD company to retain two C-band transponders on the SES-3 satellite for delivery of HD sports and PPV programming to cable audiences in the Americas, SES said in a news release Wednesday. IN Demand also uses transponders on AMC-10 and AMC-11 for delivery of its content, SES said.

In-flight connectivity is more important than in-flight meals to most airline passengers, according to In-Flight Connectivity Survey results released Tuesday by Inmarsat and market research company GfK. Eighty-three percent choose an airline based on broadband availability, more than 60 percent are willing to pay for connectivity on flights, and 78 percent expect in-flight connectivity to replace in-flight entertainment within a decade, it said. Inmarsat said survey results came from more than 9,000 air passengers in Europe, Asia, Australasia, and Central and South America between August and March.

Four firms and attorneys -- Marc Seltzer of Susman Godfrey, Hollis Salzman of Robins Kaplan, Howard Langer of Langer Grogan and Scott Martin of Hausfeld -- were appointed co-lead plaintiffs' counsel in a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and DirecTV. In an order (in Pacer) Monday, U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell of Los Angeles also ordered creation of a Plaintiffs' Steering Committee of Richard Koffman of Cohen Milstein and Arthur Murray of Murray Law Firm to co-chair it and three additional members to be determined by the co-lead plaintiffs' counsel and submitted to the court for approval. Dena Sharp of Girard Gibbs had objected to the proposal on the grounds she should be part of the leadership structure, and in her order the judge said the appointed firms "will best represent the plaintiffs in the case ... given these firms' and their respective attorneys' abilities to cooperate and make decision on behalf of the Plaintiffs thus far." Residential and commercial buyers of the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package through DirecTV are suing, alleging they broke antitrust laws by giving the satellite company exclusive rights to live out-of-market games (see 1512300027). In a separate order (in Pacer) Monday, the court ordered the 27 class-action complaints filed against DirecTV and the NFL be consolidated, saying those pending actions involve many of the same defendants and factual allegations and the defendants didn’t oppose consolidation. The consolidated complaint is to be filed by June 24, the judge ordered.

Wiley Rein became the Satellite Industry Association's first affiliate member, SIA said in a news release Monday. The trade group launched its affiliate membership category in 2015, aimed at companies and groups previously not eligible for membership.

While AMC-2 moves from 81 degrees west to 85 degrees west, Row 44 needs alternate capacity and is requesting special temporary authority (STA) from the FCC International Bureau to operate its earth stations aboard aircraft network using SES' AMC-6 satellite for 30 days. In an IB filing Friday, Row 44 said it anticipated beginning to shift traffic starting Monday. It also said it expects to use AMC-6 for at most six to eight weeks and will seek an additional STA once the initial 30 days are up. Row 44 said that once AMC-2 is relocated to 85 degrees west, the company expects to transition its Ku-band traffic back to that satellite.

Iridium launched what it's calling an alternative GPS system, Satellite Time and Location (STL). In a news release Monday, the satellite company said STL works across its 66-satellite low earth orbit constellation and provides position, navigation and timing services globally and can be used to verify or substitute for GPS, the Global Navigation Satellite System, Galileo and other navigation services. Iridium said STL also can augment GPS by providing a timing or position source when GPS signals are degraded or unavailable, and its signals penetrate into buildings. The company said its Iridium Next satellite constellation, scheduled for completion by late 2017, will also support STL.

The FCC should approve Ligado's LTE proposal once the agency wraps up receiving comments on the satellite company's proposed operational restrictions and license modifications aimed at tackling interference with GPS, Technology Policy Institute President Thomas Lenard said in a filing Thursday in docket 12-340. While more flexibly licensed spectrum for mobile broadband was a key part of the FCC's 2010 National Broadband Plan, "the most available spectrum -- indeed, the only significant block of spectrum that is already licensed but not deployed -- is the [mobile satellite service] spectrum licensed to Ligado," Lenard said. Approving the license modification, plus allocating 1675-1680 MHz for terrestrial mobile use on a shared basis with federal users, would free up 40 megahertz -- more than half the AWS 3 spectrum, which yielded $45 billion in auction revenue, Lenard said. He said that while the FCC and White House have been trying to move government spectrum into the commercial sector, "failure to approve the current proposed license modifications would effectively achieve the opposite result by transferring a large block of spectrum from the commercial sector back to the government." In a separate filing Thursday in the docket, GPS company NovAtel raised a number of technical questions with the Roberson & Associates study Ligado has pointed to as proof the modified LTE proposal wouldn't pose a GPS interference threat (see 1605110024). NovAtel said it was "particularly concerned" that Ligado had moved away from a 1 dB rise in carrier-to-noise ratio as the standard for tolerance interference, saying it disagreed with Roberson's finding that there isn't a meaningful correlation between a 1 dB change and GPS performance and that interference must not exceed that 1 dB limit. It also questioned the lack of testing of other GPS L-band receivers and of GPS signal acquisition in the presence of LTE signals, only maintenance. Ligado didn't comment Friday.

Iridium told front office and other FCC International Bureau officials of interference concerns if the satellite company's "unique" low-earth, nongeostationary orbit network shares spectrum with what it called "ubiquitously deployed terrestrial services." Because of Iridium's Next network's uses, which include defense and public safety, "degradations in service caused by terrestrial interference could produce unusually catastrophic results," the company said in a filing Wednesday in docket 14-177. Satellite companies have been telling the commission of interference concerns as the agency's spectrum frontiers proceeding looks at using the 28 GHz band for sharing (see 1605130037), and Iridium said Next uses a higher non-adjacent frequency, in the 29 GHz band. Company representatives told International Bureau Chief Engineer Robert Nelson, Satellite Division Chief Jose Albuquerque and another bureau official that Iridium backs the FCC "determination that the bandwidth available in the 29.1-29.25 GHz band simply does not meet the requirements for terrestrial 5G networks." The agency should "continue to focus on more viable spectrum for flexible use services," Iridium said. Carrier interests including Verizon have said they back commission efforts to find a way for mobile and satellite to coexist in the 28 GHz band.

ViaSat will use capacity on SES-5 at 5 degrees east to broadcast its first Ultra HD channel in four Nordic markets, SES said in a Friday announcement. The channel, to be called ViaSat Ultra HD, will be launched after the summer in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, SES said. ViaSat customers with Ultra HD TVs and with ViaSat’s new Ultra HD set-tops to debut this summer will able to receive live Champions League soccer matches and other content, it said. The addition of ViaSat Ultra HD will bring to 24 the global number of SES-backed Ultra HD channels, or 46 percent of all channels broadcast in Ultra HD via satellite worldwide, SES said. “With more and more Ultra HD channels expected in the future, satellite will remain the optimal infrastructure to deliver this new and substantially improved viewing experience.”