Threats to satellites are growing as nations and non-state actors increasingly get counterspace capabilities, with jamming and spoofing"becoming part of the part of the everyday arsenal" for some nations, the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Aerospace Security Project reported Monday. Without strong repercussions, jamming and spoofing activities "could gradually become normalized," it said.

TV news consumption on Sling TV climbed 121% since Feb. 24, said Dish Network Thursday. Sling is offering its “news-rich” Blue streaming service for free through April 5, amid the pandemic.

Investors' satellite communications bearishness in recent months, with operators' stocks down, points to shareholders looking for "unique" business cases with little product differentiation and high commoditization, Northern Sky Research analyst Gagan Agrawal blogged Tuesday. He said price wars are most likely, but operators need to focus more on new products and on mergers and acquisitions, or scaling fleet sizes.

FCC earth station siting rules need guidance that encourages collocation of gateway earth stations in fewer areas, Hughes representatives told International Bureau staff, said a docket 17-172 posting Tuesday. Hughes said the agency should allow use of a terrain model with ample granularity, akin to NASA's shuttle radar topography mission model. The company said when a new earth station's interference zone falls squarely in the interference zone of a grandfathered earth station, the new station's population shouldn't be counted. It said shielding shouldn't be required. If an upper microwave flexible use licensee doesn't raise coordination objections during the coordination process, it shouldn't be able to raise objections during the earth station licensing process, the satellite company said.

Ray Baum's Act addresses how the FCC adjusts its regulatory fee schedule but doesn't give the agency authority to charge those fees to foreign-licensed satellite systems, Eutelsat, Inmarsat, Telesat, ViaSat, Kepler and OneWeb representatives told International Bureau and Office of the Managing Director staffers. That's according to a docket 19-105 posting Tuesday. The fees are proposed as part of the FY 2020 fee schedule (see 1912090053). Most pay "substantial" fees to their home jurisdictions, and might respond to the FCC by raising their own fees, the satellite operators said. They said market access grants aren't licenses, so charging foreign-flagged systems wouldn't be consistent with how the FCC charges U.S.-licensed systems. Most had a similar meeting with the Office of General Counsel.

Non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service applications or petitions for operations in the 10.7-12.7 GHz, 12.75-13.25 GHz, 13.8-14.5 GHz, 17.7-18.6 GHz, 18.8-20.2 GHz and 27.5-30 GHz bands are due May 26, the FCC Satellite Division said in a public notice Tuesday. It said the processing round follows a similar one in 2016, and was prompted by New Spectrum, Kuiper and OneWeb applications that came after that round's close. OneWeb and Kuiper are provisionally in the latest processing round since both asked to be considered as part of previous processing rounds. It said those requests will be addressed as part of the review of their filings.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project approved the 5G variant of Globalstar's Band 53, the satellite operator said Monday. Company Executive Chairman Jay Monroe said the 5G status for the band "is a significant advancement in our spectrum efforts." It said the band could be used for small-cell use, as a traffic channel or an anchor for other bands in 5G networks.

SES/O3b and Amazon's Kuiper have been lobbying the FCC in recent days over Kuiper's proposed broadband mega constellation. SES/O3b, to aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and the regular commissioners, argued letting Kuiper bypass a new processing round would undermine the competitive certainty and stability a processing round gives and could chill investment in already approved non-geostationary orbit networks. SES/O3b said bypassing a processing round would burden authorized systems like its own and limit their capacity. Kuiper, to a Pai aide and the International Bureau, urged "expeditious" approval of its application and said existing licensees are trying "to saddle new entrants ... with heavy-handed regulations."

SiriusXM representatives opposed a wireless industry push for the FCC to license and sell the upper 6 GHz band, in meetings with aides to all commissioners expect Chairman Ajit Pai. The company uses 7.025-7.075 GHz frequencies as the only feeder link it has to transmit programming to satellite digital audio radio service satellites and control them. “The Commission licensed this spectrum to SiriusXM in 1997 as an essential element of its SDARS systems that are relied on by tens of millions of Americans, including for critical emergency information,” the company said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-295. The Wi-Fi Alliance also took a shot at the CTIA proposal. “It is remarkably ironic that, at a time when so many Americans are relying on low-cost Wi-Fi for bandwidth intensive telework, tele-school, tele-medicine and other accommodations necessary to meet the national COVID-19 crisis, CTIA argues that the Commission overestimated the need for unlicensed spectrum,” the alliance said: The current crisis “highlights how Americans have come to rely on Wi-Fi connectivity to conduct their lives.” CTIA has "consistently recognized the need for both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and supports making the lower portion of the 6 GHz band available for unlicensed use,” responded Scott Bergmann, senior vice president-regulatory affairs: “The record in the FCC’s proceeding simply does not support moving forward with all 1,200 MHz of spectrum in the band at this time, and we’ve therefore asked for the FCC to preserve its options regarding the upper portion of the band.” Bergmann said contrary to some comments, CTIA is not asking that DOD has to move out of the upper 6 GHz band.

The demand for backhaul to rural small cells is lining up nicely with satellite capacity pricing and performance trends, Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm blogged Tuesday. The cost of small-cell deployment makes them a viable option for smaller subscriber bases than macrocells, and, while mobile network operators also will compete for that business, the market for rural small cell over satellite is growing quickly, he said.