Harris CapRock seeks FCC International Bureau approval to add 1,000 2.4m multiband earth station onboard vessel (ESV) terminals to its existing license for operating in the C and Ku bands. The ST5000-2.4 terminal is also designed to operate in Ka-band fixed-satellite service frequencies, Harris CapRock said in its application filed Tuesday, file number SES-MOD-INTR2015-01657. The company last month filed an IB application to cover demonstration and testing of the ST5000-2.4 on cruise ships (see 1508060008).

Arianespace will launch the BSAT-4a satellite for Japan's Broadcasting Satellite System (B-SAT) in late 2017, it said in a Monday news release. The launch on an Ariane 5 rocket will be from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, under a contract between satellite manufacturer SSL and B-SAT. Arianespace has launched all of B-SAT's satellites. BSAT-4a is to provide digital broadcast services to Japan, including 4K and 8K Ultra HD TV services. Japanese broadcasters have earmarked the debut of 8K Ultra HD TV services in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Wait until after November's World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 before taking action such as an NPRM on high-frequency spectrum, EchoStar said in a filing posted Tuesday in FCC docket 14-177. Some topics may be recommended for more study and there may be spectrum allocation decisions at WRC-15, so waiting until afterward to tackle high-frequency spectrum issues would let everyone, including the FCC, "take into consideration those WRC-15 determinations," the company said, citing a litany of unanswered questions about high-frequency spectrum issues it said need to be hashed out before an NPRM, including whether frequencies higher than 95 GHz should be included because antenna arrays in higher frequencies, such as 120-240 GHz, are more cost-effective than those at the 30-60 GHz range. EchoStar said other questions need answers, such as what kind of interoperability potential exists across different 5G bands as 5G could end up including bands above 95 GHz, and what kind of frequency ranges are best suited for end-to-end latency of less than a millisecond in 5G. Lacking technical data on incumbent operations, technical sharing rules such as what Intel has proposed "would essentially be meaningless," EchoStar said. Intel has pushed for the FCC to move quickly on a high-frequency spectrum NPRM, arguing it would encourage ITU discussions on the topic at WRC 2019 (see 1508110053). Even sharing criteria would first need numerous questions answered, such as the typical transmit power levels and antenna patterns for Ka-band earth stations, and how would 5G affect satellite earth stations, EchoStar said. There's also a dearth of data on potential cumulative 5G interference due to incumbent systems, and a lack of propagation models for 5G systems above 24 GHz, it said, leaving questions about what models the FCC would use, as well as how the agency would even propose technical and deployment parameters for 5G given that 3GPP and other standards groups are developing the technical transmit and receive parameters and will not be done until perhaps by 2020, the company said.

Boeing jets could come off the line with ViaSat's in-flight Wi-Fi connectivity built in, under an agreement between the companies, ViaSat said Tuesday in a news release. It said the agreement allows ViaSat's Ka-band airborne satellite terminal to be evaluated as a factory option for Boeing aircraft before delivery.

Intelsat will provide broadband connectivity and cellular backhaul services to Mozambique through an agreement with Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicações de Moçambique, the company said Tuesday. The multiyear agreement has Intelsat providing some of its C-band capacity on Intelsat 902 for dual band connectivity for its own transport network and for use with local cellular providers.

The space launch company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is setting up launch operations and a production facility for its reusable orbital launchers in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Bezos said in a blog Tuesday for that firm, Blue Origin. Launches should begin "later this decade," Bezos said.

SpaceX will launch a Hispasat satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket and the Saudi Arabian Arabsat 6A communications satellite on a Falcon Heavy, the company said Monday at the World Satellite Business Conference in France. The launches are to be between late 2017 and 2018 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, SpaceX said. With those new signings, SpaceX said it has a manifest of more than 60 missions representing more than $7 billion under contract.

The Transportation Department's proposed study of LightSquared's proposed L-band LTE network and possible GPS interference "waste[s] scarce taxpayer dollars [and] will not produce any information of value to the FCC," a company spokeswoman said Friday. DOT set an Oct. 9 deadline for comments for its draft test plan on establishing criteria for power limits for transmitters in GPS-adjacent bands, it said in a Federal Register notice Wednesday. DOT isn't developing standards either for GPS receivers or transmitters operating in adjacent bands, but the interference tolerance masks "will be used to assess the adjacent band interference power levels that can be tolerated" by Global Navigation Satellite System receivers, the agency said. The draft test plan gives broad outlines of the study parameters. For example, the categories of receivers operating in the 1559-1610 MHz band to be studied are aviation, cellular, general location/navigation, high precision, timing, networks and space-based receivers. The details of the test procedure are being developed, but the testing is expected to take up to nine days, DOT said. "Instead of developing a plan to enable technological advancement and spur spectrum innovation, the DOT is proposing to set limits on spectrum use by promoting the continued use of outdated filter technology in receivers," the LightSquared spokeswoman said. This latest plan follows a 2012 DOT testing plan aimed at setting up "the framework for definition of the processes and assumptions that will form the basis for development of the GPS adjacent-band compatibility for GPS civil applications," she said. "It has taken DOT almost four years to propose a vague study that is absent procedures or timelines and will not answer the critical question of whether wireless broadband would cause any actual harm to the accuracy of GPS devices." Roberson and Associates is doing a LightSquared-commissioned study of the scope and degree of L-band LTE network interference to GPS, and results are due this fall. That plan has faced criticism from the GPS industry as being redundant to the DOT planning effort (see 1508250070).

Intelsat remains unconvinced SpaceX's experimental operations won't interfere with its own co-frequency geostationary satellites, it said in an FCC Office of Engineering and Technology ex parte filing submitted Thursday in File 0356-EX-PL-2015. While it "does not necessarily oppose" SpaceX seeking regulatory approval for plans to launch test satellites in advance of a low earth orbit constellation providing a global broadband service, Intelsat said it still lacks sufficient data to assess the potential for Ku-band downlink interference issues. Those SpaceX test satellites could increase geostationary orbit earth station receiver noise by roughly 24 percent, Intelsat said, adding that's quadruple the single-entry coordination trigger in ITU regulations for co-frequency satellite networks, and uses more than the 20 percent allowance for multiple entry fixed-satellite service interference recommended by the ITU, Intelsat said. The company also raised red flags about the growing proliferation of propulsion-less low earth orbit satellites such as SpaceX proposes. "Secondary Part 5 experimental aircraft should bear a greater share of the burden of collision avoidance," Intelsat representatives told OET and International Bureau staff in a meeting, according to the ex parte filing. The company said it "would be pleased to refine its calculations were more information on the public record," repeating the argument it has made repeatedly (see 1507270060). SpaceX has said Intelsat is on "a fishing expedition," creating needless delay (see 1507310040).

MaxLinear will debut a multichannel satellite Ultra HD set-top box and media server reference design at the IBC show in Amsterdam, it said Friday. The reference design, done jointly with Quantenna and STMicroelectronics, uses MaxLinear's MxL5xx satellite receivers, ST’s STiH418 4Kp60 Ultra HD decoder and Quantenna’s QSR1000 Wave 2 Wi-Fi chipset, MaxLinear said.