Fox Networks emphasized that the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruled (see 1501210056) that Dish Network breached its contract with Fox Networks with its Sling and Hopper Transfers features. Fox said in a statement Tuesday that Dish also was found to have infringed Fox’s copyrights and breached its contract by making unauthorized copies of Fox programming with its AutoHop feature, which lets customers skip commercials on programming they record. “While we are still disappointed the court felt that PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop do not violate our copyrights or contract, Dish has been largely disabling AutoHop anyway,” said Fox. This case doesn’t involve consumer rights or new technology, but “protecting creative works from being exploited without permission,” Fox said. Dish didn’t have an immediate comment.

Hughes Network Systems will begin offering HughesNet Gen4 service plans with SmartTechnologies, it said in a news release Wednesday. The new plans improve data compression, website loading, download speeds and raise Bonus Bytes to 50 GB a month, which gives customers extra data allowance that they can use during off-peak hours, it said.

The FTC won a partial summary judgment against Dish Network for “tens of millions of calls” violating the commission’s telemarketing rules, said the FTC in a news release Wednesday. The FTC was a co-plaintiff along with Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina in the case, which was filed in 2009, the agency said. A U.S. District Court judge in Springfield, Illinois, said Dish and its vendors were responsible for more than 4.09 million calls made to numbers on the Do Not Call registry, and Dish retailers were responsible for another 2.73 million calls to numbers on the registry. The court also said Dish was responsible for more than 1.04 million calls to consumers who had already told Dish they didn’t want to receives such calls and whose phone numbers were on a Dish internal do-not-call list. “The court left the issue of whether Dish is liable for any entity-specific violations relating to its retailers to be determined at trial,” the FTC said. Dish and three of its retailers also were found to be responsible for nearly 49.74 million “abandoned calls" -- outbound calls where the person answering is not connected with a sales person within two seconds. Prerecorded telemarketing messages violate the abandoned call rule because the telemarketer is not connecting the call to a sales representative within two seconds, the FTC said. Because the FTC won only a partial summary judgment, other aspects of the case, such as Dish’s responsibility for its retailers in some instances, remain to be litigated at trial, the FTC said. Dish "respectfully disagrees with the bulk of the decision by the Court," a company spokesman told us. The FTC has "outsourced the management of the National Do Not Call Registry to contractors, with minimal oversight, resulting in a Registry that is inaccurate and that the U.S. Government itself characterizes as ‘a mess,’" Dish said. "While the FTC acknowledges its own failures regarding the maintenance of the Registry, it nonetheless attempts to hold American businesses to a different standard."

CMMB Vision, a mobile multimedia service provider, and New York Broadband picked Boeing Satellite Systems International to build an L-band satellite, they said in a news release today. The NYBBSat-1 will support mobile multimedia services in China and other Asian markets. The new satellite will be launched in mid-2017 and replace the AsiaStar satellite, recently acquired by New York Broadband. New York Broadband signed a memorandum of understanding with CMMB Vision to lease the entire capacity of the satellite to CMMB. A launch vehicle hasn't been selected.

The U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin planned to launch the third Mobile User Objective System satellite Tuesday night on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, Lockheed Martin said in a news release Jan. 16. The launch window was 7:43 p.m. to 8:27 p.m. EST, it said. The launch was slated for the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Inmarsat Government signed a service provider agreement with Globecomm Systems to supply Inmarsat’s Global Xpress service to the U.S. government, said Globecomm in a news release. Global Xpress works with the Ka-band Wideband Global Satellite system, it said. Inmarsat-5 offers Global Xpress for U.S. government customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and southwestern Asia, it said.

Satellite operator SES and the Luxembourg government agreed to operate an X- and Ka-band military satellite through a joint Luxembourg-based company, SES said in a news release Tuesday. SES plans to launch the satellite in late 2017, it said. It will cover Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. SES and the Luxembourg government will invest about 50 million euros ($58 million) each into the company. The joint company will receive a bank loan of about 125 million euros from Luxembourg banks.

ViaSat picked SpaceX to launch its ViaSat-2 high-capacity broadband satellite aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket, it said in a news release Monday. The launch is scheduled for late summer 2016 at the Kennedy Space Center. ViaSat said it expects ViaSat-2 to "cover seven times the geographic area and offer twice the bandwidth economics advantage" of its previous satellite. Coverage areas will include North and Central America and the Caribbean basin. This new satellite enables ViaSat to offer additional data for its wireless plans, it said. ViaSat-2 will also connect North America with U.K. and European coverage for "high-speed in-flight internet and other mobile services” through ViaSat’s partner Eutelsat and its KA-Sat satellite, a ViaSat spokeswoman emailed us.

ViaSat on Tuesday filed an application for FCC review (10-90) of its Rural Broadband Experiments plan. The Wireline Bureau denied the company’s RBE application Dec. 5. ViaSat’s waiver request was not offered a public comment period, unlike 15 similar requests from other companies, ViaSat said Tuesday. The company suggested the commission hold the RBE auction process in abeyance while it considers ViaSat's review application. In response, Lake Region Electric Cooperative, Ozarks Electric Cooperative and Northeast Rural Services filed a joint comment saying they filed their applications and supplemental filings in a timely manner, which positions them next in line to receive funding. The comment also said waivers like that sought by ViaSat could delay the CAF Phase II process.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers’ office reached a $2 million settlement with Dish Network Friday, focusing on the company’s sales practices. The company will revise its sales disclosures nationwide to reflect its right to raise prices at any time, said the office in a news release. "This is going to have broader implications regarding the disclosure and consumer protection rights that we were able to establish through the agreement by the company to be a lot more forthcoming in its sales practices," said a spokeswoman for the office in an interview Monday. The AG began investigating Dish’s sales practices in 2011. Numerous consumers complained about price increases after the company promised that contract rates were “frozen” or “guaranteed” not to change. While disagreeing with the AG's allegations, Dish said it appreciates the office's "constructive feedback regarding our sales process," emailed a company spokeswoman. "We are pleased to amicably resolve this matter." The settlement was filed in Denver District Court by attorneys with the AG's Consumer Protection Section, as was a civil complaint alleging Dish's sales practices violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act. The money will be split by the state's general fund and a special consumer protection fund in Suthers' office.