A permanent injunction against the companies behind the TVpad set-top box needs to be modified because the defendants continue to pirate copyrighted programming through a comparable product, said Dish Network and broadcasters China Central TV (CCTV) and TVB Holdings in a motion to amend (in PACER) filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Dish and the others sued in 2015, alleging the plaintiffs -- including Create New Technology (CNT), Hua Yang International Technology, TVpad.com and NewTVpad.com -- were infringing on CCTV and TVB programming, with Dish having exclusive rights to that content in the U.S. The plaintiffs received a permanent injunction last August, but the defendants now are marketing an identical device, blueTV, that functions the same as TVpad, Dish and the others said. CNT and Hua Yang couldn't be reached for comment.

Satellite terminal company Norsat received an unsolicited, conditional, nonbinding purchase offer from Privet Fund Management, it said in a news release Monday. Norsat said it put together a special board committee to review the proposal, and it notified Hytera Communications about the takeover bid -- Hytera having signed an agreement in March for the buyout of Norsat.

The Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) is pushing back against some satellite operators' proposals for changes to the spectrum frontiers order (see 1702270018). In a filing to be posted in docket 14-177, FWCC said the satellite operators' proposal for a tiered spectrum frontiers approach whereby an earth station protected area could cover 0.2 percent to 10 percent of a license area population, depending on the band and the area's population, would threaten upper microwave flexible use system service and that the FCC should stick with the current rule or the FWCC tiered proposal that uses smaller percentages. FWCC said it agreed with the satellite operators that there needs to be better definition of what types of facilities and transportation routes can't be in earth station interference zones, but said it disagreed with some of the proposed satellite operators' definitions. FWCC said it doesn't disagree with the satellite proposal to dropping the limit of three earth stations per license area, as long as the population percentage limit remains the same or, in a tiered approach, is no higher than the FWCC proposal and as long as the population limit applies to the aggregated projected areas of all the earth stations in a license area. And FWCC said it objected to the satellite proposal of a coordination system database of UMFUS facilities "as being unnecessarily expensive and complex."

With its next-generation Next constellation starting to go into orbit, Iridium wants to modify its blanket earth station license to accommodate next-gen earth stations designed to work with it. In an International Bureau filing Thursday, the company said the first generation of the next-gen earth stations come in forms already associated with the existing earth station license, but the second generation is a "one size fits all" terminal, Iridium Certus, that will be used in land, sea and air applications in different operating modes.

Earth station testing in California demonstrates that "careful design, placement and installation of 28 GHz earth stations" would let them coexist without problems alongside 5G and upper microwave flexible use system deployments, ViaSat said in a docket 14-177 FCC filing posted Thursday. The testing showed the earth station's power flux density levels, without any mitigation efforts, were below the FCC's required threshold except in one case, ViaSat said, saying additional shielding would be easy to install to rectify that.

Even if U.S. District judge's summary judgment order on behalf of Dish Network wasn't certified as final, it still is appealable because it includes an injunction, Digital Satellite Connections said in a memorandum filed Wednesday in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. DSC said the statute of limitations ran out on Dish counterclaims that were dismissed without prejudice, thus making the final judgment final. The memorandum was in response to the appeals court asking for one after questioning its own appellate jurisdiction on the case. Dish didn't comment Thursday. The March 24 summary judgment order by Judge Robert Blackburn of Denver was in response to Dish and DSC motions for summary judgment in a 2013 lawsuit brought by satellite reseller DSC and owner Kathy King, in which they claimed Dish was infringing on their Dishnet trademark with its Dishnet Satellite Broadband. Blackburn said under the terms of the 2010 agreement between DSC and Dish, Dish is entitled to ownership and use of the Dishnet trademark. DSC didn't renew its agreement with Dish in 2012, according to court paperwork.

Ligado keeps underestimating the availability requirement of weather satellite data, and satellite delivery was designed for higher availability "than even the best Internet connectivity and cloud services provide today," a group of weather interests said in an FCC RM-11681 letter posted Thursday. They said various Internet connectivity options for non-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration users of NOAA data don't "provide a suitable alternative" to weather satellite data. They said NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R-series of satellites was designed with a ground segment rebroadcast service on 1686.6 MHz to have a 99.988 percent availability over a 30-day period -- essentially meaning no more than five minutes of downtime a month. For an alternative content delivery network (CDN), "this is a particularly high bar," the weather interests said, saying non-NOAA users of the data can't all afford one-time costs of an antenna and associated site and installation. Typical service level agreements from major providers of data services or cloud services fall short of that 99.988 percent goal, meaning cloud services could have outages the equivalent of 20 to 40 minutes a month, they said. Without "a clear and reliable alternative to important data transmissions," the FCC shouldn't proceed with rulemaking regarding commercial sharing of the 1675-1680 MHz band, they said. The letter was signed by American Meteorological Society Executive Director Keith Seitter, American Geophysical Union Executive Director Christine McEntee and University of Wisconsin-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center Interim Director Steven Ackerman. Ligado in a statement said, "Questions raised by these groups are the very questions that should be discussed and resolved during" an NPRM "process regarding the potential auction of the 1675-1680 spectrum band, which a broad group of industry stakeholders have asked the FCC to pursue. An NPRM would seek further public comment and allow everyone ample opportunity to express remaining concerns and present solutions. Ligado has developed a cloud-based content delivery network for NOAA’s weather data that is as reliable and fast as the current satellite delivery method. George Mason University is currently using this network, and they find that it not only delivers critical NOAA weather data with high reliability and low latency, but it makes sure the data will be available to everyone in real time -- not just a select few with the resources to purchase and operate very expensive satellite receiver equipment.”

Federal court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to weigh a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract with Space Systems Loral (SSL) for development of the capability to service and maintain geosynchronous orbit satellites, DARPA said in a motion (in Pacer) to dismiss filed Tuesday. In its filing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, DARPA said the lawsuit -- brought by Orbital ATK and its Space Logistics subsidiary, claiming the DARPA contract unfairly competes with commercial space activity (see 1702090045) -- flies in the face of what the Supreme Court's 2000 Sierra Club v. Peterson ruling said about challenging agency actions and that the SSL contract is well within agency discretion. DARPA said the suit should be dismissed for failing to state a claim, since it involves the Obama administration's national space policy directive, which doesn't create a legal framework a court can enforce. Orbital ATK didn't comment Wednesday.

Spectrum Five is yet again hoping to offer direct broadcast service in the U.S. In an FCC International Bureau filing Wednesday, the company asked for a declaratory ruling letting it enter the U.S. market with a Netherlands-authorized satellite operating at 95.15 degrees west. It asked the same in September, days after surrendering its license authorizing launch and operation of a satellite service (see 1609070052), and the bureau in March authorized the petition, but the firm said it then didn't post the required bond. "If this petition is granted, it is able and willing to post the bond," Spectrum Five said now.

Connect America Fund Phase II bid weighting rules adopted in February (see 1702230019) "will effectively preclude" satellite operators from taking part in the reverse auction, which will hurt American consumers, Hughes Network Systems told the FCC. In an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-90, the company recapped a meeting between Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner and an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at which the company said satellite is too heavily handicapped by the weights given to latency and baseline 25/3 Mbps service.