Air Force development of a GPS operational control system that would replace the existing ground system is four years behind and $1.1 billion over budget, said a GAO study released Wednesday. While the Air Force has contingency plans for maintaining the GPS constellation even while operational control system work goes on, those plans "may not deliver the full range of GPS capability," such as the effort to develop GPS cards that can receive the military code signal, thus helping operate in jammed environments, the GAO report said. That military code capability won't be seen until mid 2019 at the earliest, even though the Defense Department has plans to generally buy only military code-capable user equipment after FY 2017, the GAO said, saying the Air Force should seek outside guidance and expertise to help address the systemic problems. Operational control system development "has been mired in development difficulties resulting in steady cost growth and schedule delays [and] has yet to turn the corner on resolving the problems that have affected the program since development began in 2010," GAO said. "Five years into what was originally estimated to be a five-year effort, [development] is still roughly five years away from completion." While many GPS satellites have lived beyond their expected lifespans, a modernized GPS system -- including the operational control system as well as GPS III satellites -- "is critical," and the operational control system development delays will take longest to address, GAO said. "Those delays are likely to pose significant risks to sustaining the GPS constellation, and consequently, delivering GPS capability to the military community." The GAO report recommends -- and the Department of Defense agrees in its response in the report -- an independent task force of other defense agencies and military services be convened and give guidance on tackling the underlying problems. The report and DOD also agreed on keeping members of that task force as a management advisory team to help in regular analyses of defects, on developing better cost and schedule estimates based on past performance of the operational control system development, and on a system for ensuring information from the operational control system assessment is used in seeing if further program changes are needed. But the DOD partially disagreed with a GAO recommendation that military services be allowed to assess the progress of military GPS user equipment (MGUE) design before committing test and procurement resources. Contractors are expected to deliver MGUE prototypes soon, well before any such assessment could be done, and would require contractors halt their current development work, which could lead to delays of months, it said. Military services aren't bound to buy any MGUE cards until an operational user evaluation report is done, and the Air Force will be responsible for MGUE card development until any performance deficiencies found in that evaluation report are fixed, the DOD said.

Ericsson and Intelsat will jointly debut a high dynamic range video contribution feed for the IBC show in Amsterdam, the companies said in a news release Wednesday. Using the DVB-SX2 satellite broadcasting standard opens the door to better quality HD contribution feeds with HDR while avoiding bandwidth losses, they said.

LightSquared, Deere and Trimble seemingly are edging closer to settling interference claims, though LightSquared and Garmin remain at loggerheads, according to a transcript of a pretrial conference Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan before Judge Richard Berman. The satellite company "has had several helpful discussions with Deere over the past few weeks with more scheduled for this week," LightSquared counsel Winn Allen of Kirkland & Ellis told Berman, saying Deere "has shown a willingness to work ... on technical and regulatory issues" and that the two companies could come to a settlement agreement "sometime within the next few weeks." While a Deere settlement is not imminent, Deere attorney Kenneth Schacter of Morgan Lewis said the two "have had some constructive discussions ... and we are considering what we've heard." A settlement with Garmin "does not appear likely at this time," and the GPS company hasn't shown enthusiasm for a LightSquared-proposed idea of a mediator, Allen said. Garmin "would be delighted to settle this case" but hasn't seen any technical information from LightSquared that could be the basis of that solution, said Philip Douglas of Jones Day, representing Garmin. "The problem, I suspect, is that Garmin's devices are different from those at issue with Deere and Trimble," with its aeronautical navigation and landing devices presenting "more serious technical problems," Douglas said, adding that the company would rather have guidance from the Federal Aviation Administration than come to a separate agreement on its own with LightSquared, since other aeronautical navigation equipment makers could have issues. Berman scheduled a follow-up status conference for Oct. 8. LightSquared sued the three companies and the U.S. GPS Industry Council in 2013 after they raised concerns that LightSquared's planned ground-and-satellite-based LTE broadband network could interfere with GPS signals in adjacent spectrum space, which lead to the FCC revoking the company’s spectrum license, ultimately forcing it into bankruptcy.

BridgeSat and Draper Laboratory will cooperate on developing ground stations for BridgeSat's optical connectivity system, BridgeSat said Tuesday. The laser-based optical connectivity system will mean better transfer of large volumes of data from satellites and high-altitude unmanned vehicles, BridgeSat said. It said Draper has developed technology for ground station operations, task automation and data delivery, and the agreement will help in developing BridgeSat's laser communications receivers and data processing centers.

Hughes Network Systems topped 5 million satellite terminals shipped cumulatively, the satellite company said in a Tuesday news release. That gives the company close to a 50 percent market share globally in the very small aperture terminal satellite industry, Hughes said.

Intelsat and Harmonic are jointly launching HVN Intelsat UHD, a linear Ultra HD demonstration channel for North American TV markets, Intelsat said in a Tuesday news release. Broadcast by Intelsat's Galaxy 13 satellite, the channel is aimed at multichannel video programming distributors interested in preparing and testing their own Ultra HD transmissions. The two companies plan to demonstrate HVN Intelsat UHD channel content later this month at the IBC 2015 Conference in the Netherlands. That test signal will use teleport stream servers at Intelsat's teleport facility in Atlanta and Harmonic's ProMedia Xpress multiscreen decoder and packager for precompression of the UHD video loop. The companies said Harmonic will use its MediaGrid shared storage system, Polaris playout management suite, Spectrum X advanced media server system and Electra X3 advanced media processor for full Ultra HD channel production and transmission later this year.

French ISP Nordnet will make Gilat Satellite Networks' SkyEdge II-c consumer kits part of its Star package that bundles satellite-based Internet, phone and TV services, Gilat said in a Tuesday news release.

HD Plus, the SES-affiliated satellite-TV operator in Germany, plans to launch UHD1, a 24-hour Ultra HD content channel, Friday, said Timo Schneckenburger, managing director-marketing and sales, in Berlin at IFA Thursday. “UHD is the next frontier of television,” Schneckenburger said. “In Germany specifically, we have seen a steadily rising demand for UHD as well.” During daytime hours, all content provided by satellite by SES Astra on UHD1 “will be free for everybody to enjoy,” he said. During prime time, UHD1 “will become a truly exclusive offering for HD Plus customers only,” said Schneckenburger. “UHD1 will be an important catalyst to further drive the conversion from HD to UHD. And as consumer demand for UHD content increases, so will the number of options to broadcast that content.”

Sprint is upping the wireless service ante for DirecTV customers, as the carrier said Thursday it would offer several tiers of plans for DirecTV customers who switch wireless service to Sprint. Previously, Sprint had offered a year of free wireless service -- unlimited talk and text and 2 GB of data per line per month -- for DirecTV customers or for Sprint customers adding a line of service. Now, the company is offering 4 GB and 6 GB monthly plans at $10 and $20 per line, respectively. The offer follows AT&T's completion in July of its acquisition of DirecTV.

DirecTV subscribers with LG webOS smart TVs will have access to streaming 4K and HD content without a dedicated set-top box in LG TVs that are DirecTV Ready, LG said. The models are the first LG TVs certified for the RVU Alliance based on its testing criteria, said an LG spokeswoman. On whether the company will make the free webOS firmware upgrades standard policy, she said “it’s certainly something that we’re evaluating" and the company is pleased with the response it has received from consumers. Among the performance improvements in the webOS update, LG added a My Channels section that allows users to customize their favorite live TV or set-top box channels on the launch bar for quick access. Improved quick settings are said to minimize distraction from content as vertical buttons on the right side of the screen are activated when the Magic Remote cursor passes over them, the company said Tuesday. Input selection is a Quick Menu option in the updated software, giving faster access to more inputs, it said. LG’s webOS update also includes additional streaming content apps from iHeartRadio and Rdio, the company said. Some of its Ultra HD TVs are recommended by Netflix.