The separate FCC rules for vehicle-mounted earth stations, earth stations on vessels and earth stations aboard aircraft are "duplicative ... unnecessary and inefficient," Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday as commissioners approved 3-0 an NPRM on regulations governing earth stations in motion (ESIMs). The rulemaking isn't expected to face major pushback or notable controversy (see 1705090018). Pai said the rules harmonization and consolidation -- with the three regulatory categories of earth station rules being made into one -- should help the agency process applications more easily, while allowing blanket licensing in the conventional Ka-band increases opportunities for deployment. International Bureau Satellite Division lawyer Cindy Spiers said the current rules extend only to C- and Ku-band and were developed in separate but overlapping procedures. In a statement, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said he appreciated edits in the NPRM soliciting comments about whether ESIMs could potentially cause interference with incumbent satellite operations or future 28 GHz terrestrial operations. As the World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 nears, he said he will pay attention to ESIM use in 27.5-29.GHz: "We must ensure that U.S. positions do not potentially dissuade investment and deployment in the 28 GHz band either domestically or internationally. Our continued commitment to the future success of the 28 GHz band must be clear to all."

A federal judge rejected Dish Network's bid for a new trial in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class-action lawsuit. In its March motion for a new trial, Dish argued the verdict ran against the clear weight of the evidence and the court made prejudicial evidentiary rulings in the trial. In a text order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles of Greensboro, North Carolina, rejected that motion and a related motion for judgment. Dish argued it couldn't be held legally responsible for phone calls made by an outside contractor to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry since the calls to class members violated Dish's express instructions. Eagles' ruling didn't include an opinion. Dish didn't comment Wednesday.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency never disputes that its contract with Space Systems Loral (SSL) violates the national space policy (NSP), and instead is effectively taking the position it can act without oversight, Orbital ATK said in an opposition (in Pacer) filed Monday. It responded to a DARPA motion to dismiss (see 1704120014) Orbital ATK's lawsuit claiming the SSL contract for development of technology for servicing in-orbit geosynchronous satellites unfairly competes with commercial space activity. The NSP, as an executive order, "has the force of law" and gives the court a standard to apply to DARPA's conduct, Orbital ATK said. DARPA counsel didn't comment Tuesday.

Power flux density (PFD) limit changes aren't needed for satellite operations to allow spectrum sharing with upper microwave flexible use service (UMFUS) systems in the 39 GHz band, Boeing said. A docket 14-177 ex parte filing Tuesday said the FCC instead needs only to define conditions under which satellites could increase their transmit PFD limits to compensate for rain fade and to adopt equivalent PFD (EPFD) limits for restricting downlink transmissions. That EPFD approach might require operators of big nongeostationary and geostationary constellations in the same spectrum to sometimes use transmit PFD limits below the current requirements or to limit the number of satellites radiating toward the same ground point, it said. But the EPFD approach would ensure aggregate emissions of satellites in the 39 GHz band wouldn't exceed the power levels needed to protect UMFUS receivers, it said. EPFD limits would require the identification and use of reference UMFUS receive antenna patterns, it said, saying it did a variety of demonstrations showing broadband satellite systems operating in the 39 GHz band without harmful interference to UMFUS systems. The ex parte recapped a meeting between Boeing representatives including Global Broadband Vice President Bruce Chesley and Wireless and International bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology staffers.

Requiring all non-geostationary satellite operators in Canada to provide complete coverage of the country as a condition for market access would mean fewer competing NGSO services available for Canadians. That was the argument raised by U.S. satellite operators in replies posted Friday by Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada as it looks at a rewrite of NGSO rules (see 1704240026). Boeing said there's broad agreement that ISED shouldn't limit the number of licensed systems, require third-party arbitration of coordination disputes or make foreign NGSOs complete international coordination before being authorized for Canada, but there's broad disagreement on coordination requirements and Canadian coverage and capacity requirements. ISED might want to impose conditions on Canadian-licensed NGSOs on direction and control of the systems, but there's no valid argument for concluding Canadians won't see satellite service without Canadian coverage and capacity reservation requirements, it said. O3b said some proposals, such as requiring foreign-licensed NGSOs coordinate with Canadian-licensed systems before getting access to the Canadian market, could create an imbalanced competitive playing field. It advocated that ISED adopt in-line interference rules similar to the FCC's, with consequences such as spectrum splitting for two operators unable to coordinate as a means of encouraging coordination in good faith. ViaSat said requiring foreign-licensed NGSOs to complete coordination with Canadian satellite operators gives those Canadian operators the incentive and opportunity "to control the timing and pace of market entry by their competitors." ViaSat backed a proposal by a coalition of Canadian satellite operators that coordination be required, but requests for Canadian landing rights not be denied or delayed if a foreign-licensed operator has ITU date priority or is facing delays in reaching a timely coordination arrangement. OneWeb said ISED's proposed milestone requirement, that large NGSO systems have a third of their constellations up by year six after being licensed and fully deployed by year nine, would result in spectrum warehousing and give a milestone extension to already authorized NGSO systems.

Garmin bought ActiveCaptain, a developer of crowdsourced content for boaters, the GPS company announced Thursday. Karen and Jeffrey Siegel, founders and sole employees, will become Garmin employees, the buyer said.

Lowering its planned non-geostationary orbit satellite constellation from a 1,200 kilometer orbital height to 1,030-1,082 kilometer will mean double the number of avoidance maneuvers, to 3.3 per satellite per year, because of increased orbital debris at that altitude, Boeing said in an FCC International Bureau letter posted Wednesday. It responded to a bureau request in April for additional technical details (see 1704120021). Boeing said those additional maneuvers still would be well within each satellite's fuel allocation. It said due to built-in redundancies in the satellites' deorbit subsystems, likelihood of the inability to perform avoidance procedures would be less than 1 percent. Even at a 1 percent failure rate among its planned 2,956 satellites, the probability of impact with any of the failed vehicles is fewer than 0.00268 per year, it said. Boeing earlier this year said it planned to move its constellation, after talks with OneWeb, which has an NGSO constellation planned for roughly the same altitude (see 1703020036).

Dish Network and plaintiffs in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class-action lawsuit disagree over defining the ostensible class members eligible for part of a jury award. It's up to the court to decide who should receive part of the $20.4 million class judgment against Dish Network, an issue in which Dish has no legal interest, plaintiff Thomas Krakauer said in a response (in Pacer) in opposition to a Dish motion filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, North Carolina. It said Dish's proposal -- letting it challenge each claim post trial (see 1704270008) -- would nullify the jury's finding of liability and assessment of statutory damages to the class. The plaintiff said the very point of class action is to avoid the need to present individual proof and its proposed tests for proof of class members is "overwhelmingly burdensome and patently unreasonable." Dish's motion (in Pacer) in opposition to the plaintiff's suggested post-trial procedures said the court before trial said the jury wouldn't decide whether ostensible class members were the phone number subscribers or the people who answer the calls that were the TCPA violations, and plaintiffs are arguing the jury decided all the elements of the class member claims in stealth, allowing immediate entry of a final judgment in favor of 18,066 phone numbers. The jury didn't make an aggregate damages determination, Dish said, adding each ostensible class member still must establish an element of the claim.

Remote sensing company Astro Digital US (AD) hopes to launch as many as 100 satellites over a 15-year span, it said in an FCC International Bureau filing Monday. In its application for authority to launch and operate an earth-exploration satellite service system, AD said the low earth orbit Landmapper constellation will never exceed 30 satellites at any given time -- 10 broad-area coverage satellites and 20 high-definition satellites -- with each satellite having a lifespan of roughly five years. AD -- formerly Aquila Space -- said it applied for a license with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to operate the Landmapper constellation and received a NOAA license for the broad-area coverage part of the system and expects to have the remainder licensed by the end of Q2. It expects to launch the first two broad-area coverage satellites at the end of Q2, with the third and fourth going up later this year.

Satellite communications could take advantage of relaxed net neutrality rules to target end-users seeking ISP alternatives, Northern Sky Research's Lluc Palerm-Serra said in an NSR blog post. NSR said one potential of 5G is the range of applications that will come through network segmentation, but first there needs to be some revision of net neutrality rules because different use cases that need to coexist on the same networks -- like IoT, connected cars and first responder communications -- often have different priority requirements. Smarter networks will benefit satcom, which "can’t compete on brute force (capacity and pricing) against ground networks," NSR said, saying relaxing rules on cellular backhaul could particularly benefit satcom. It said any net neutrality deregulation that leads to increased efforts to boost ISP competition as a means of safeguarding end-users from unfair data management policies also could benefit satcom.