Tim Warren

DBS programming requirements could see changes to First Amendment protection if the Supreme Court takes up Dish Network’s request for review, industry lawyers said. The company seeks high court review of DBS programming requirements that could amount to significant changes to the First Amendment protection given to the service. Dish recently asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision not to stop a STELA provision requiring HD carriage of local public TV stations. Like most Supreme Court review requests, the odds are against a court review, though several issues raised by Dish could pique the interest of the high court, said lawyers not involved in the case. The request may also be superseded by the FCC v. Fox being considered by the court this term, the lawyers said.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., hosted a discussion with LightSquared, GPS device makers and the FCC, according to ex parte filings (http://xrl.us/bmha3w and http://xrl.us/bmha32) and interviews with participants. Tuesday’s meeting points to a more hands-on approach to the controversy and one of the few public displays of interest on the issue by Walden. While other House committees have called hearings to look at the LightSquared debate over GPS interference, the House and Senate Commerce committees so far have taken a behind-the-scenes approach to the controversy (CD Sept 22 p6).

Fox Networks’ online attempts to tie its ongoing programming cost dispute with DirecTV to a looming broadcasting deadline amount to strong-arming and intimidation, say critics of the tactic. While Fox Networks concedes the broadcasting stations aren’t immediately vulnerable as part of the dispute, the retrans deadline is close enough on the horizon to be a factor, said a Fox Networks spokesman. DirecTV and News Corp. are in a public fight over the cost of some Fox Networks cable channels, and Fox Networks has said the loss of 20 local stations remains a possibility.

A subpoena to force LightSquared and the FCC to turn over communications about the company isn’t preferable for Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, though there are several ways to do so, his spokeswoman said. Grassley is unlikely to get help from the committee’s chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in accessing the communications, said a former aide to that committee. Grassley could partner with House Republicans to force the FCC’s or LightSquared’s hands in providing the information, said the ex-aide.

BOULDER, Colo. -- Charging spectrum fees for terrestrial use of mobile satellite service spectrum is bad policy and could slow investment in services there, Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen said Monday at a Silicon Flatirons event. Dish is buying DBSD and TerreStar and hopes to make use of their terrestrial spectrum. The issue of spectrum fees was recently raised as a revenue generating component of President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act.

The very small aperture terminal (VSAT) industry remains uncertain of the necessity for carrier ID as a means to mitigate frequency interference, said David Hartshorn, secretary general of the Global VSAT Forum. Hartshorn and others are leading the effort to deal with interference and said the issue represents a growing problem for the satellite industry. Hartshorn spoke about the interference issue in a panel at SATCON in New York and discussed the VSAT concerns with Communications Daily afterwards. Other sections of the satellite industry, including broadcasters and data, have made real progress in dealing with the issue, he said.

The role and interest of the U.S. government in in-orbit servicing of satellites remains a major question as Vivisat and MDA move toward beginning operations, company executives said Wednesday on a SATCON conference panel in New York on extending the life of satellites. While the commercial market is huge, MDA can’t compete with the U.S. government or a government-funded program, said Steve Oldham, president of space infrastructure servicing at MDA. That would put “us out of business,” he said. “We don’t have the size or power” to compete with the government, he said.

Open Range Communications filed for bankruptcy Thursday despite receiving the largest loan commitment under the Agriculture Department’s Rural Development Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program. The Rural Utilities Service approved a loan of $267 million for Open Range in March of 2008, under President George W. Bush appointee RUS Administrator Jim Andrew. Open Range owes RUS about $74 million in secured debt, said the company.

Recent efforts in Washington to reduce government spending have led to another barrier to a wide-scale use of hosting of government payloads on commercial satellites, panelists said Tuesday at the Hosted Payload Summit in Washington. While hosted payloads have long been touted as a cost-saving tool, some satellite operators have had trouble making that point because hosted payloads are considered “something separate” and extra, said Rich Pang, director of hosted payloads at SES Government Solutions. It’s common to hear from the government that there’s “no new money,” he said.

Some contraction of TV stations’ footprints as part of voluntary broadcast spectrum auctions is a possible and acceptable scenario, said Sherrese Smith, an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Speaking for herself and not the FCC, Smith was responding to concerns for the voluntary auction process raised by Marcellus Alexander, president National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation. He said the voluntary incentive auction process may significantly lessen the reach of broadcasters who don’t choose to auction of their spectrum. They spoke during a National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications panel at NCTA Thursday night.