ViaSat received its first Federal Aviation Administration supplemental type certificate (STC) for its in-cabin distribution system, it said Monday. It's the first of two STCs the company said it expects to receive for in-flight entertainment and connectivity, with the second expected in Q1 for its hybrid Ku/Ka-band antenna system. ViaSat's in-cabin distribution system -- deployed on Virgin America -- ties its antenna system to the in-flight entertainment system, providing Internet connectivity to passenger devices and distribution of broadcast TV over satellite to the onboard seatback display. The company also said Monday it has begun licensing its digital signal processing and forward error correction cores for 100G optical transport.

Intelsat seeks FCC International Bureau approval to relocate Intelsat 16 from 76.2 degrees west to 58.1 degrees west. The 30-day drift is expected to run Nov. 4 through Dec. 3, with the new location so it can provide services to Intelsat customers Sky Mexico and Sky Brazil, Intelsat said.

The Justice Department signed off on LightSquared's plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In a filing posted Friday in FCC docket 15-126, DOJ said it had no objections to LightSquared's request for the commission to transfer licenses to its post-reorganization entity. DOJ in June requested any FCC approval of reassignment of those licenses be contingent on the standard review of the transaction for any national security, law enforcement and public safety issues. In a statement Friday, LightSquared said the approval "moves the process forward another step, and we’re glad to see the ... review come to a successful conclusion. With no opposition to the application, the Commission now has what it needs to make a decision on change of control. Doing so would result in clear public interest benefits, including enabling significant investment in our nation’s next-generation broadband infrastructure.” According to the DOJ filing, LightSquared agrees to a number of conditions, such as domestic communications will be routed through the satellite company's U.S. point of presence "so that pursuant to lawful U.S. process, electronic surveillance can be conducted." Justice said that the satellite firm agreed that any data the company stores won't be kept in a way subject to foreign laws requiring mandatory destruction and stored inside the U.S. unless for "bona fide commercial reasons."

As LightSquared's MSAT-1 relocates from 106.5 degrees west to 107.5 degrees west, Telesat is asking the FCC International Bureau for special temporary authority to use a pair of earth stations for telemetry, tracking and command services. LightSquared subsidiary SkyTerra has received Industry Canada approval to relocate the satellite to 107.5 degrees west, where it's expected it will be for the remainder of its operational life, Telesat said in an IB application filed Thursday. Telesat said the 60-day authority needs to commence by Wednesday.

As the number of nongeostationary orbit satellites (NGSOs) in orbit or planned for launch rises, the role of geostationary orbit satellites (GSOs) is coming into question. "Over time, we'll see a shift" to NGSOs, Whitney Lohmeyer, OneWeb communications systems and regulatory engineer, said Friday as the FCBA's International Telecommunications Committee held a brown bag lunch panel talk about NGSO regulatory issues. Most services that a GSO satellite can provide, an NGSO can do as well but with lower latency, Lohmeyer said. However, said panelist Audrey Allison, Boeing director-frequency management, "we're not getting out of [the GSO] business. [NGSO] is an important supplement." But, she said, that GSO companies like EchoStar are investing in NGSOs "is pretty telling." GSO fits some niches, like video distribution, better than NGSO, said panelist Suzanne Malloy, O3b vice president-regulatory affairs. "The introduction of a new technology doesn't mean everything old is retired," Malloy said. A Boeing NGSO system is in the design stage now with the idea that holders of existing fixed satellite service spectrum allocations could be getting more use out of that spectrum through NGSOs, Allison said. OneWeb expects the first launches of its 648-satellite constellation to start in 2017 and has applications worldwide with numerous nations for the 50-150 gateways it needs, Lohmeyer said. It also is working on developing a terminal that operates both with GSOs and NGSOs, she said: "It'd be ideal, but it's challenging." And O3b has 12 NGSO satellites in orbit serving more than 40 customers in 20-plus countries, and is planning for eight more satellites, Malloy said. When asked about regulatory reforms the panelists would like to see, Malloy said the FCC's Part 25 rules tend to be both GSO-oriented and "very specific" on technical issues like antenna performance, which complicates changing the rules as NGSO regulations would have to be just as granular. Allison said Boeing's "particular pet peeve" is wanting to see better rules regarding milestone compliance -- an issue the Satellite Industry Association also brought up in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 12-267 (see 1509230022). SIA called on the FCC to simplify the critical design review (CDR) milestone, saying the routine submission requirement of CDR information both prolongs review and raises the danger of inadvertent disclosure of sensitive competitive information.

Sentech extended its contract with Intelsat by several years, Intelsat said Friday. Sentech uses Ku-band capacity on Intelsat 20 for its direct-to-home and digital terrestrial TV services in Africa, Intelsat said.

Inmarsat wants to add the Inmarsat-5 F3 satellite to its Global Xpress Ka-band aeronautical mobile blanket earth station license. The modification would let Inmarsat broaden its Ka-band aeronautical service to add coverage to aircraft travel in the Pacific Ocean region, Inmarsat said in an application filed Wednesday. Inmarsat-5 F3 went into orbit in August (see 1508280018).

Even a small, 1 dB increase in a noise floor can affect GPS accuracy, integrity, availability and continuity "in unexpected or dramatic ways," Garmin said in an FCC ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 12-340. Garmin and LightSquared are at loggerheads over whether LightSquared's planned ground-and-satellite-based LTE broadband network could interfere with GPS signals in adjacent spectrum bands (see 1509090013). The filing summarized a meeting between Scott Burgett, Garmin's director-global navigation satellite system and software technology, and Philip Verveer, Chairman Tom Wheeler's senior counselor. Garmin said it remains focused on protecting global navigation satellite system applications from interference "while potentially exploring ways that currently underutilized spectrum in adjacent bands can be made more productive."

Arianespace plans to launch a pair of communications satellites Monday -- the Sky Muster for Australia's nbn and Invap-built Arsat-2 for Argentina's Arsat, it said Thursday. The launch on an Ariane 5 rocket will be from Kourou, French Guiana, Arianespace said.

Small satellites pose their own regulatory issues and should be handled separately from the FCC's current look at changes to the Part 25 rules for earth and space station licensing, the Satellite Industry Association said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 12-267. SIA said it is considering filing a petition for rulemaking specifically regarding small satellites. A parade of satellite industry representatives met with International Bureau staff to lay out industry proposals for Part 25 changes, the filing said. Present at the meeting were executives from or representatives of Boeing, DirecTV, EchoStar, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Iridium, Kymeta, OneWeb, O3b and SES, said SIA, which said the satellite industry "urged the Commission to move expeditiously" on an order. Among the industry-proposed changes are the recommendation the FCC should go further in its proposal that it file with the ITU an operator proposal for a geostationary satellite (GSO) for non-planned fixed satellite service (FSS) bands before a full space station application needs to be filed, SIA said. The FCC should allow ITU filings before license applications for non-geostationary (NGSO) operations in non-planned FSS bands as well as for GSO and NGSO operations in bands outside of FSS, SIA said. Current ITU filing practices put domestic applicants at a competitive disadvantage as they must disclose detailed space station plans before the FCC will file with the ITU, meaning operators have a disincentive to obtain U.S. licensing of new satellite systems, SIA said. The SIA group also told IB staff some technical rules "could be simplified, and in some cases relaxed" to help get products to market faster, though the changes would not materially increase the risk of interference.