Dish Network is buying EchoStar's broadcast satellite service business for roughly $809 million of Dish stock, Dish said Monday. The deal includes nine direct broadcast satellites and some EchoStar personnel as well as licensing for an orbital slot, Dish said, adding that it expects the buy to lead to operational efficiencies and improved cash flow. It said the transaction is expected to close in the second half of the year, assuming regulatory approvals. The satellites involved are EchoStar VII, EchoStar X, EchoStar XI, EchoStar XII, EchoStar XIV, EchoStar XVI, EchoStar XXIII, Nimiq 5 and QuetzSat-1, it said. EchoStar said the transaction will let it focus its efforts on its growing satellite broadband business while shedding "the risk associated with providing services to a solitary customer."

With Jan. 28 OMB OK and the FCC deadline remaining May 28 for earth station and satellite operators to give the commission data about C-band use (see 1904110034), a notice prepared for Monday's Federal Register mentions what information must be provided. Fixed satellite service earth stations in the 3.7-4.2GHz band that are authorized in the International Bureau Filing System "must certify the accuracy of all information reflected on their licensesor registrations in IBFS," say the International and Wireless bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology. FSS space station license operators covering the U.S. in the band must also provide details.

That neither Dish Network designated entity Northstar Wireless nor SNR Wireless has taken steps in the past four years to deploy a wireless system confirms that the Auction 97 licenses they bought were intended for Dish use, Vermont National Telephone Co. (VTEL) told U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this week as it opposed a Northstar/SNR motion to dismiss its complaint. In a docket 15-cv-00728 filing (in Pacer), VTEL said it had made adequate allegations that the defendants had violated the False Claims Act and that the case isn't foreclosed by the government action bar since no penalty was imposed by the FCC. The defendants' motion to dismiss (in Pacer) called VTEL's fraud allegation "implausible" and lacking specificity regarding details about the alleged fraudulent conspiracy.

OneWeb CEO Adrian Steckel, meeting with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, urged the agency to move as quickly as possible on the company's pending satellite license modification application. Steckel pointed out that SpaceX's more-involved modification ask was OK'd in less than six months while its has been pending for almost 14, recounted a posting Wednesday in docket 18-313. OneWeb said it told Pai its application only came after the agency relaxed its non-geostationary orbit milestone rule and that it "assiduously adhered" to the old rules in planning and submitting its initial U.S. market access request. The company wants to significantly increase the size of its constellation granted U.S. market access in 2017 (see 1803200002).

To compete with geostationary orbit (GEO) operation prices on consumer broadband, low earth orbit (LEO) satellite operators are likely to focus heavily on service models, often partnering with local telcos and application-based service providers, Northern Sky Research's Gagan Agrawal blogged Wednesday. The analyst said LEOs have a better chance of success with applications that require latency and bandwidth density. NSR said edge caching, over-the-top video via satellite and maritime passenger applications could be big beneficiaries of LEO supply, though not at consumer broadband price points. The researcher said a challenge for LEOs is that GEOs and medium earth orbit satellites already serve such core target applications as broadband, backhaul, maritime and aeronautics and that all the capacity LEOs promise to bring to market could result in an even bigger price war than already expected.

In a meeting with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, Iridium reiterated its concerns that Ligado's terrestrial network plans could cause interference to its mobile terminals (see 1708040029). Absent some resolution, the agency mustn't allow Ligado's application regarding use of the 1627.5-1637.5 MHz block, said an FCC docket 12-340 ex parte posted Tuesday.

To protect fixed satellite service earth stations from 5G interference in the C band, the C-Band Alliance is proposing a number of steps. They include a 20 MHz guard band at 3880-3900 MHz and a 5G aggregate power density limit, CBA CEO Bill Tolpegin told FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp, said an FCC docket 18-122 posting Tuesday. It said protections will be based on earth station locations, and there should be an additional 30-day registration window for them after an order. It said any protections for earth stations registered after that 30-day window would then need an FCC waiver and agreement with the local flexible-use provider. It said antennas with diameters of between three and 13 meters and elevation angles of five degrees or more would be protected in the whole 3900-4200 MHz band and across the full geostationary arc. "A very limited number" of earth stations would be grandfathered in the 3700-3900 MHz band, requiring larger exclusion zones. All incumbent earth stations would receive 3900-4200 MHz band-pass filters. In a separate filing, the group and members Intelsat and SES recapped a meeting with aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to discuss outreach to interested stakeholders.

Comments are due July 15 on NOAA's proposed rewrite of remote sensing satellite regulations, according to a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register. NOAA says its goal is reducing regulatory burdens and increasing transparency and certainty while still preserving government interests. It says a chief route for doing so is creation of a two-category framework that sets license terms based on the risk posed to national security and international obligations, and consideration of custom license conditions only for systems that are novel and carry particular risk. It says it's especially looking for feedback on suggested criteria for designating between low- and high-risk systems.

The FCC’s draft and final NPRMs on the 1675-1680 MHz band are virtually identical, based on a side-by-side comparison. The FCC released the final order Monday. Two additions were mentions of letters from Ligado, contained in footnotes. But the text in docket 19-116 doesn’t address the Ligado arguments. Commissioners approved the NPRM Thursday (see 1905090041). "This proposal to make additional spectrum available for non-federal flexible wireless use is another step in the Commission’s efforts to help ensure that the speed, capacity, and ubiquity of the nation’s wireless networks keep pace with ever-increasing demand for wireless broadband," the NPRM said: "It is also part of a broader government effort to introduce more spectrum into the marketplace while protecting important federal missions."

The order authorizing Theia's planned earth-observation satellite constellation, approved at Thursday's meeting (see 1905090031), was released Friday.