Seven commonly controlled broadcasters' attempts to get the FCC involved in stuck contract negotiations with DirecTV "turn the good-faith standard on its head," said the DBS provider Wednesday in a filing posted in docket 12-1. Blackhawk Broadcasting, Bristlecone Broadcasting, Broadcasting Licenses Limited Partnership, Eagle Creek Broadcasting of Laredo, Mountain Licenses, Northwest Broadcasting and Stainless Broadcasting filed a complaint with the FCC last month. They asked the FCC to step into the retransmission consent negotiations, alleging DirecTV wasn't negotiating in good faith and asking the agency to force it to show numbers to back up its estimations of the market value of the group's signals (see 1506120021). The rates Northwest demanded would make it "by far the highest-paid broadcaster that DirecTV carries anywhere," and disclosing what it pays others would violate agreements with those broadcasters, said the satellite company. Having failed to show any kind of bad-faith negotiations, Northwest has no case to make for asking the FCC to open DirecTV's rate data to it, the company said. "If ever there might be an occasion to do so, surely this is not it."
The Sky Mexico-1 satellite finished on-orbit testing and checkout of spacecraft systems and was turned over to owner DirecTV, Orbital ATK said in a Tuesday news release. The satellite was launched May 27 from French Guiana. It will provide direct-to-home TV broadcast services to DirecTV customers in the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico.
LightSquared is asking for FCC help in obtaining GPS receiver designs, having confidential talks with the major GPS firms about the economic issues concerning them and meeting in-person with GPS executives to hammer out industry issues with the satellite company. LightSquared CEO Doug Smith met Philip Verveer, senior counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, to talk about GPS industry concerns as LightSquared makes plans for its L-band spectrum once it emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, said an ex parte notice posted Monday in docket 12-340. Smith "emphasized that he is certain LightSquared and the major GPS device firms can reach a reasonable business compromise," LightSquared said, saying FCC intervention "could help resolve the issues." LightSquared also has hired a consulting firm, Roberson & Associates, to study interference issues between GPS services and broadband (see 1506250008).
Iridium signed up resellers for its new Push-to-Talk satellite-based communications system, including AST Group, Beam Communications, Gardline Comms, Gilat Satcom and Spacenet Communication Services de Mexico, the company said in a Monday news release. Push-to-Talk is based on the satellite company's low earth orbit constellation, and uses its various PTT radios and other providers' PTT devices that employ the Iridium PTT 9523 Core transceiver.
ViaSat is adding new products and services aimed at government agency and military customers, it said in a Monday news release. It said the new offerings include cybersecurity vulnerability assessment and remediation services and managed security services, and cyber-sensing capabilities available via software upgrades to some of its network managed security services.
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.
LightSquared is asking for U.S. Transportation Department feedback on a plan for testing how terrestrial broadband and GPS might co-exist. In an FCC ex parte filing in docket 12-340 posted Wednesday, it said technology consulting firm Roberson and Associates gave the DOT some initial outlines on its testing approach. The testing involves spectrum used by global navigation satellite system (GNSS) spectrum and its proximity to spectrum used by LightSquared and Inmarsat, and how LTE bases or handsets can cause interference with nearby GPS receivers. The Roberson testing proposal will look at actual devices from such providers as Apple, Garmin, Magellan, Samsung, Topcon and Trimble, and measure the relationship of GPS error and signal-to-noise ratios. The Roberson presentation said the testing is to confirm that front-end filters on such GPS devices allow GNSS reception and still let the devices work properly. And in cases when GPS performance still sees interference from terrestrial LTE despite such front-end filters, possible fixes include use of different augmentation signals that improve GPS accuracy, or different front-end filters, LightSquared said.
Globalstar now operates in Africa. It said Thursday its gateway in Gaborone, Botswana, is operational, opening the door for it to offer its Simplex data services across the continent jointly with Broadband Botswana Internet. Globalstar said it's targeting offerings at such applications as commercial trucking fleet; mining and construction equipment tracking; and livestock and endangered species monitoring.
Fox News Headlines 24/7, a full-time satellite radio news channel, will launch this fall on SiriusXM, the satellite company and Fox News said Wednesday. The channel is part of a multiyear agreement between the two, and will be broadcast on SiriusXM Channel 115. SiriusXM already broadcasts audio simulcasts of cable channels Fox Business Network and Fox News on channels 113 and 114, respectively, as well as Fox News Talk radio programming on Channel 450.
Iridium Constellation and Globalstar continue to joust over spectrum, with Iridium both criticizing Globalstar's terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) broadband proposal and laying out its case for the FCC instead expanding the 1.6 GHz spectrum that the companies share, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in RM-11697. "Taken together, the pending Iridium and Globalstar requests are about the future" of big low earth orbit mobile satellite service, but while its sharing proposal will boost mobile satellite services growth, Globalstar's push for a private Wi-Fi channel in the 2.4 GHz band "would materially diminish the satellite resources available to first responders, critical industry and consumers," Iridium said. Globalstar has been critical of Iridium's sharing push, saying Iridium has no need for the spectrum and raising red flags about signal interference (see 1505180036). "Iridium has no other option for securing additional spectrum" other than the 1.6 GHz band, Iridium said, saying existing Iridium/Globalstar spectrum sharing "has proven to be workable and free from interference to Globalstar." Globalstar had no comment Wednesday.