Ligado keeps trying to brush away legitimate interference concerns, such as its proposed terrestrial wireless network posing bigger interference concerns in the band adjacent to Iridium's 1617.775-1626.5 MHz spectrum than current and future satellite operations in the same spectrum do, Iridium said in an FCC docket 11-109 filing posted Thursday. Iridium said Ligado continually tried to chip away at the 2003 ancillary terrestrial component order rules about gating and technical requirements, so Ligado's plan now is far beyond what was envisioned in the ATC rules. It said Ligado is engaged in "pure spectrum arbitrage," because it let its satellite business wither. Iridium also denied Ligado assertions that it inflated the interference risk via worst-case scenarios, saying it used LTE parameters used multiple times in past interference assessments. Ligado in a statement said it has "confidence that the Commission can distinguish between fact and fiction and between the license modification and 1675-1680 MHz auction proceedings." Iridium repeatedly brought up concerns about interference from Ligado's broadband network (see 1706290043 and 1612140061).
As it looks to harmonize FCC 2016 approval of its broadband terrestrial low-power service plans across jurisdictions worldwide (see 1612230060), Globalstar had talks with regulatory agencies in 15 countries beyond what it announced in May, CEO Jay Monroe said in an earnings call Thursday. He said the company expects to have filed a number of applications internationally for terrestrial use of its 2483.5-2500 MHz band spectrum by year's end. He said it expects FCC approval of its mobile satellite service license modification application "within days," after the comment period ended in July without opposition (see 1705250011). He also said the company is in partnership discussions "with numerous companies" that either have or want their own terrestrial networks, since Globalstar doesn't expect to build its own.
The global space economy in 2016 was $329 billion, up roughly 2 percent from 2015 due to growth in the commercial space sectors more than offsetting small declines in government spending, the Space Foundation said in an news release Thursday. It said the $253 billion in commercial space activities was 76 percent of the global space economy.
With satcom increasingly dominated by high-throughput satellites (HTS), satellite operators need to be able to sell data capacity in bulk while still having some bargaining power and value-add, Northern Sky Research (NSR) analyst Blaine Curcio blogged Wednesday. NSR also said HTS payloads need to be designed with anchor clients in mind or, even better, with precommitted anchor clients that will help design the system.
For the ground segment for its planned Lemur satellite system, Spire Global is asking for FCC International Bureau OK to operate seven earth stations in Alaska, Arizona, Guam, Hawaii, Minnesota, North Carolina and Utah. In a series of bureau applications filed Wednesday (for example, here), Spire said Lemur will provide aircraft, maritime and meteorological monitoring. It asked for authority to use the 402-403 MHz band for uplinks and the 2020-2025 MHz band for downlinks.
Communications with EchoStar III have been intermittent since an anomaly last week while it was moving to a new orbital location, said a news release Wednesday. It said the Ku-band satellite was launched in 1997, significantly exceeding its 15-year design life. The company said it's working with the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, to re-establish a reliable link, to recover and retire the satellite, and it shouldn't pose a significant risk to other geostationary satellites.
The FCC is still studying Ligado's LTE applications, Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday after the commissioners' August meeting. Asked whether the agency has enough information in the record to make a decision, he didn't comment except to stay the agency is "still taking input from all stakeholders." The company has repeatedly pushed the agency for a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spectrum-sharing NPRM and approval of its LTE plans (see 1706050056).
The global satellite transponder market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of close to 5 percent through 2020, Technavio said in a news release Wednesday. It said growth is being driven by demand for, among other things, bandwidth leasing and high throughput satellite spot beams. It said increased utilization rate of transponders due to satellite launches planned for the second half of this year drove a big increase in revenue between 2016 and 2017. It said the three biggest revenue-generating application segments of the global satellite transponder market are communications, with the telco industry looking to lease transponders to provide broadband; earth observation; and technology development satellites used to test newly developed satellite technology.
Inmarsat completed an "around the world" Global Xpress test flight, using a Gulfstream IV jet that covered more than 25,000 miles over seven days in June to show in-flight connectivity capabilities via its Global Xpress constellation, said a news release Wednesday. The company said the flight went across 28 spot beams and there were three satellite-to-satellite handovers. It said during the flight, the in-flight connectivity supported such applications as video conferencing, high-speed internet access and file transfer and phone calls.
The FTC and states that complained about Dish Network's telemarketing practices are opposing the company's bid to have a $280 million fine reduced. In an opposition (in Pacer) to Dish's motion to alter or amend the judgment posted Monday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Illinois, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint plaintiffs said the $280 million is a huge reduction from the $783 billion in statutory damage and maximum penalties Dish faced, and the award isn't disproportionate to the substantial harm inflicted on U.S. consumers. They said Dish -- in challenging the court finding that all the calls made by outside marketers Star Satellite and Satellite Systems Network were conclusively made to residential phone numbers -- is advocating "for a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard" while the court, using the relevant preponderance standard, found that each separate call was likely made to a residential number. The filing was in response to a motion (in Pacer) earlier in the month by Dish, saying the court found it liable for calls made by those outside marketers since the intended recipients were residential phone subscribers, but TCPA makes no mention of intended recipients and instead focuses on actual recipients.