Hughes Network Systems said the FCC shouldn't widely differentiate the bid weights assigned to broadband performance tiers or heavily penalize high-latency services in the planned Connect America Fund Phase II reverse auction for subsidizing fixed broadband/voice services. Satellite provider pricing data show "if the bidding increment per tier is greater than 10%, and if the penalty for high-latency bids is greater than 10%, satellite providers will not be able to compete, even in the highest-cost areas," Hughes said in a filing Tuesday in docket 10-90. Noting it opposed a fiber provider proposal to attach "excessive weights to fiber-based bids in the Gigabit bidder tier," Hughes said the commission should adopt a bid weighting system that provides a maximum 10 percent credit for 25/3 Mbps service, 20 percent credit for 100/20 Mbps service and 25 percent credit for gigabit service. It said the proposal is consistent with several others in the record and with FCC-stated CAF objectives to allocate support in a way “that is technology-neutral and that balances the objectives of maximizing the number of consumers that will be served with the value of higher speeds, higher usage allowances, and lower latency."

Dish Network and plaintiffs in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class-action claim are clashing over attempts to enhance a jury award in favor of the plaintiffs. Dish, by not addressing the FCC's standard for willfulness in its closing arguments, effectively is conceding its TCPA violations were willful and thus the court has the discretion to enhance the jury's award, the plaintiffs said in a trial brief (in Pacer) filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, North Carolina. Dish also didn't address a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals precedent that willfulness doesn't require bad purpose or intent and can come from repeated failure to follow the law, the plaintiffs said, saying Dish's argument the company had to have actual knowledge of each element of the claim is unsupported in law. Plaintiffs said Dish's opposition to an enhanced jury award "is based on alternative facts and arguments" the jury rejected, such as that Dish dealer Satellite Systems Network (SSN) was an independent contractor, contrary to the jury's findings. Dish's brief (in Pacer) said the jury verdict against it lacks a legally sufficient evidentiary basis, and it will move for a new trial and file a motion for judgment as a matter of law. Dish said the plaintiffs didn't show that it and SSN agreed to form any agency relationship, that Dish had any authority over SSN's behavior, or that the calls in question were actually TCPA violations. With SSN's five calls to named plaintiff Thomas Krakauer going against Dish's express written instructions to SSN to not call him again, the verdict can't stand, Dish said. The 11th Circuit's 2015 ruling in Lary vs. Trinity Physician made clear the standard for willful or knowing TCPA violations: the plaintiff proving the defendant knew it was doing something that violated the statute, Dish said, saying courts rejected the alternative standard the Krakauer plaintiffs are pushing. A 10-person jury last month awarded class members $400 per TCPA violation and plaintiffs are seeking a court enhancement to increase the award to $1,200 per violation.

SES and its O3b are making their case for spectrum frontiers rewrites (see 1612160019) to FCC officials, with the companies in ex parte filings (see here and here) posted Monday in docket 14-177 recapping bureau and commissioner meetings. The satellite companies said the discussions focused on their proposals in their joint petition for reconsideration of a revision of the earth station siting requirements. The companies also said they emphasized the importance to fixed satellite services of the 40 GHz and 47 GHz bands and encouraged the FCC to allow broader FSS use of the 24.75-25.25 GHz spectrum. At the meetings were O3b Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Suzanne Malloy and Spectrum Director Zach Rosenbaum and SES Senior Legal and Regulatory Counsel Petra Vorwig. They met with Chairman Ajit Pai aide Rachael Bender, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn aide Daudeline Meme, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly aide Erin McGrath, and staffers from the International and Wireless bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology.

Dish Network's civil complaint against the Trinidad operator of websites used to traffic Dish security passcodes can be served by email because the company tried hiring a private investigator, left service with the defendant's sister in Trinidad and tried to call the defendant multiple times on his personal cellphone, U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal of Houston said in an order (in Pacer) Monday. Rosenthal in January ordered that Dish had to file proof of service on the complaint by Feb. 20 or risk dismissal of the case. Filed in November, Dish and co-plaintiffs EchoStar Technologies and NagraStar, both Dish suppliers, said defendant Robert Gittens bought at least 480 separate Internet key sharing (IKS) server passcodes and then resold them repeatedly through www.fladishnet.com, www.lfpsiksdonation.com and www.craftyarts2.com, and Gittens on his Craftyarts2.com consents to U.S. jurisdiction. The companies ask for injunctive relief, an order allowing Dish to take possession and destroy all IKS server passcodes and other piracy software and an order transferring ownership of the three websites to Dish, plus damages. Gittens didn't comment Tuesday.

Most of its earth stations already licensed to use the 28 GHz band wouldn't be in compliance with the siting restrictions put in place by the spectrum frontiers order, EchoStar said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-177. It also submitted suggested power flux density (PFD) limits for 39 GHz band operations that it said are tailored for the regional atmospheric condition differences around the country. EchoStar said under the FCC rule Section 25.136, applicants for a 28 GHz fixed satellite service (FSS) earth station license face limits in the form of a protection zone that can't contain any major event venue, arterial street, interstate, urban mass transit route, passenger railroad or cruise ship port. The company said to demonstrate how onerous those conditions are to FSS operators, it analyzed its gateway earth stations authorized to operate with its EchoStar XIX satellite and found that only four of 17 grandfathered earth stations comply with the siting rules. It also said that in six of the seven cases where its sites have contours that cover no population at all, some other factor like a nearby road or event venue could preclude future earth stations there, so the agency should revise its siting rules. EchoStar also urged the FCC to establish the conditions whereby satellite operators can use ITU PFD limits set on the 39 GHz band to overcome rain fade, since currently the commission allows such power limits to deal with rain fade but also requires PFD limits that are 12 dB below the ITU during clear sky conditions. The satellite company said it would prefer uniform PFD limits, but if the FCC wants to tailor its downlink PFD limits to different geographies' atmospheric conditions, it could set tiers with higher PFD limits in more humid parts of the nation and lower tiers in more arid regions.

The satellite industry's slice of the connected car market won't be big, at least for the next decade, said Northern Sky Research analyst Dallas Kasaboski in a blog post Sunday: The number of land-mobile connected vehicles receiving broadband by satellite is expected to be small through 2025, with wireless and cellular coverage instead being dominant. NSR said satellite's challenges include signal decay limiting its effectiveness, while weather and vehicle speed issues necessitate rugged, expensive antennas. Also making competition difficult is the near ubiquity of terrestrial services, it said. NSR said while numerous partnerships between mobile operators and the auto industry have been announced, there have been few such talks between the auto world and satellite service providers. "OEM deals are key factors to enable satellite-based connectivity in cars," NSR said. Antenna manufacturers haven't focused on connected cars, seeing it "as very niche with little potential," it said, adding there's a bigger focus on providing connected vehicle capability for high-speed railways. Dual-mode devices that switch between terrestrial mobile and satellite networks and are integrated directly into vehicle manufacture "will allow satcom to ride along with the success of terrestrially-connected vehicles, while proposing an added value proposition for use in remote environments," NSR said, though it added an integrated billing system could be difficult. "It will be necessary if satcom is to make a play with network-agnostic passengers in the connected car market," said the researcher.

Dish Network will deliver live in 4K Ultra HD a natural history series, Planet Earth II, it said in an announcement. The series, narrated by David Attenborough, will be simulcast on BBC America, AMC and SundanceTV Saturday, with subsequent episodes airing on BBCA every Saturday night, Dish said. Dish is also offering an exclusive free preview of BBC America, from Tuesday through March 30, giving customers access to Planet Earth II in both 4K and HD at no extra cost, it said.

Higher Ground's plans to deploy up to 50,000 mobile satellite earth stations is raising considerable threats of adjacent channel interference to nearly 58,000 fixed service point-to-point microwave links already being operated, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition said in an FCC application for review to have been posted Friday. FWCC simultaneously also filed a motion for a stay of the authorization Higher Ground received in January for the C-band deployments. FWCC said the Higher Ground waiver requires it prevent harmful interference to fixed service (FS) operations, but the company "failed to show it can carry this burden" and hasnt released details of how its system operates or give any proof it has been tested in real-world conditions. The group said the requirement Higher Ground keep logs for purposes of confirming or denying it caused interference on an occasion is useless since an FS operator couldn't tell the source of a service interruption and it does nothing to prevent or predict a recurrence. In its application for review to be posted Friday, FWCC said a Higher Ground representative last year at a frequency coordination committee meeting admitted the company won't provide protection against adjacent channel interference, and that company's subsequent assurance it would comply with applicable out-of-band emission limits "was an evasion, a technical play on words" since it addresses a different problem of a transmitter tuned to one channel that improperly puts a signal into a different one.

Along with the Galaxy 28, SES-3 and Telesat T12V satellites, Gogo subsidiary AC BidCo wants to add the ARSAT-2 to its pending application to modify its earth stations aboard aircraft (ESAA) license (see 1701100014). In an FCC International Bureau filing Wednesday, AC BidCo said the Argentine-licensed satellite at 81 degrees west orbit would provide coverage of North America. In a separate filing Wednesday, the company asked for 60 days of special temporary authority, starting March 1, to allow as many as 200 ESAA terminals to communicate with the satellite over the Ku-band while its license amendment application is pending.

Space Systems Loral got a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract to develop the capability to service and maintain geosynchronous orbit satellites -- a contract Orbital ATK is suing to block. SSL said in a news release Thursday that DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program will be the foundation of a new business line in repairing, relocating and refueling in-orbit assets. SSL said it will provide a spacecraft to carry the robotic servicing payload and take care of integration of the two, and DARPA will provide robotics technology and the launch. SSL also said it's in talks "with several key customers" about the planned commercial venture and it will market the offering to both commercial and government satellite operators. Orbital ATK said it plans its first satellite life extension project in 2019 for Intelsat (see [Ref:1604120044]). In its suit (in Pacer) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Orbital ATK and its Space Logistics subsidiary called the DARPA award to SSL a "waste [of] hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars" for satellite servicing technology that NASA and the private sector are developing. The contract violates U.S. space policy instituted in a 2010 Obama administration executive order mandating government space systems be developed only when there's no suitable commercial alternative and precluding space activities that could compete with U.S. commercial space activities, Orbital ATK said, asking for declaratory relief and an injunction. DARPA said RSGS is aimed at technologies important to national security and not expected to be commercially available in the near term, such as ultra-close inspection, mechanical anomaly repair, and installation of technical packages satellite exteriors -- "all of which require highly dexterous robotic arms" like those already created by DARPA. SSL didn't comment about the litigation. Also named as a defendant is DARPA acting Director Steven Walker.