The fixed satellite service market has been relatively stable at around $11.3 billion annually over the past five years, but the top four operators' market share eroded to 60 percent, with new companies like YahSat, Thaicom and Insat joining the top 10, Euroconsult said Tuesday. It said 12 new operators started over the past five years, including in 2017 BRI, BulgariaSat and Telebras, meaning 46 revenue-generating operators as of year's end. Euroconsult said those new players, along with lower growth demand, cut margins, fill rates and revenue per transponder from five years ago. It said major issues in coming years will be the emergence of nonlinear video services, managed services and connectivity everywhere, plus non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) constellation and terrestrial network expansion. It said competition will increase, with 11 players expected to enter the FSS geostationary market by the early 2020s. Euroconsult said operators likely will focus on high-throughput satellite payloads, systems with more coverage, power and bandwidth allocation flexibility, quicker development of NGSO constellations and a transition from bandwidth suppliers to managed service providers.

Earth station in motion sharing with fixed earth stations is feasible, as evidenced by ViaSat's coordination of ESIMs with NASA around the White Sands Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System site without interference, ViaSat officials told FCC International Bureau staffers, according to a docket 16-408 ex parte filing posted Tuesday. It said its analysis also shows ESIM use of the 29.25-29.3 GHz band is compatible with mobile satellite service feeder link operations even when close to gateways. Citing ESIM sharing possibilities, the company repeated its push for the FCC to allow secondary fixed satellite services in the 19.4-19.6 GHz and 29.1-29.25 GHz bands (see 1801180060). ViaSat also repeated its call for a clear FCC route to propose non-geostationary orbit application amendments that don't constitute a major amendment. It said it's inequitable to allow nonconforming systems to avoid previous rules but not show a route for changes to compliant systems.

Cubesats should be subject to the same 25-year deorbiting rule as other payloads when it comes to post-mission disposal (PMD), the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office said in its February Orbital Debris newsletter. It said the findings are the results of computer modeling to look at the effects to the geosynchronous orbit environment over the next 200 years of the introduction of cubesat mega constellations on the low earth orbit. Modeling of mega constellations without PMD shows significant increase in catastrophic collisions at 600-1000 kilometers, it said.

The U.N.'s Unispace+50 global conference to convene in June likely will result in an agenda that drives multilateral space policy discussions, deliberations and debates through at least 2030, Secure World Foundation Executive Director Michael Simpson blogged Monday. He said advances that could raise policy questions range from smallsat technologies and new launch approaches to artificial intelligence and the possibilities of commercial airports also handling space mission traffic.

Attempts at amending non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite applications pending before the FCC could result in delay and uncertainty in the licensing process and "threaten the integrity" of the processing round regime, SpaceX said (here and here) in meetings with International Bureau staffers and an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. It said the agency has clear rules against manipulating processing rounds. SpaceX didn't name any particular amendments but said the agency in the past acted against potential spectrum warehousing or speculation by prohibiting a party having an attributable interest in more than one NGSO system in a band and ensuring pending applications for which wholesale changes are proposed are relegated to a later processing round. Boeing has argued its attempt to transfer its NGSO application to OneWeb Chairman Greg Wyler doesn't violate those NGSO attributable interest rules (see 1801020007).

Trimble remains open to working with the FCC on regulatory issues for Ligado's proposed broadband terrestrial low-power service, it said in a docket 12-340 ex parte filing posted Thursday on meetings with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai and International Bureau staff. Trimble backs an agency waiver to let U.S.-based devices receive Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System signals and repeated its concerns free high-accuracy service to be provided as part of Galileo's GNSS service could disrupt the commercial market (see 1712220034).

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology granted special temporary authority to Globalstar and Harris for an experimental cubesat mission. According to approvals (see here and here) granted Friday, Harris will do S-band downlinks using a Globalstar GSP-1700 duplex transmitter. Harris said the point of the mission is assessing radiation mitigation techniques and the performance of a broad-bandwidth deployable antenna specifically designed for cubesats and the effective coverage of Harris' downlink, uplink and payload experiment data communications. Globalstar said the cubesat mission will be about six months, and Harris will notify the FCC of the dates of the operation once established.

Dish Network bought connected parking technology company ParkiFi, specializing in IoT-enabled wireless parking sensors, and will continue to operate under that brand, Dish said Thursday. Dish noted plans to build its own national narrowband IoT network by early 2020 (see 1703080026).

Boeing wants to add more inter-satellite links (ISL) to its planned V-band constellation. In an FCC International Bureau filing Wednesday, it sought authorization for ISLs in the 65-71 GHz band. Those would be atop the ISLs pending authorization in the 47.2-50.2 GHz and 50.4-51.4 GHz bands (see 1703020036), it said. The 65-71 GHz band is allocated on a primary basis for geostationary and non-geostationary orbit ISL transmissions, and Boeing said it wants to use the ISLs in the band for transmissions among its proposed low earth orbit satellites. The company said it needs the 65-71 GHz spectrum because of uncertainty about whether it can coordinate sufficient access to V- and Ka-band frequencies for ISL transmissions using just its previously requested ISL spectrum.

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals and the satellites themselves are vulnerable to "steadily evolving" threats of accidental and deliberate interference and cyberattack, the U.K. Government Office of Science reported Tuesday. Noting heavy and growing reliance on GNSS, it said the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Ofcom should keep addressing interference risks to GNSS-dependent users when allocating spectrum to new services and applications. It said critical national infrastructure operators should make provisions for the loss of GNSS by using GNSS-independent back-up systems.