Intelsat and Harmonic are jointly launching HVN Intelsat UHD, a linear Ultra HD demonstration channel for North American TV markets, Intelsat said in a Tuesday news release. Broadcast by Intelsat's Galaxy 13 satellite, the channel is aimed at multichannel video programming distributors interested in preparing and testing their own Ultra HD transmissions. The two companies plan to demonstrate HVN Intelsat UHD channel content later this month at the IBC 2015 Conference in the Netherlands. That test signal will use teleport stream servers at Intelsat's teleport facility in Atlanta and Harmonic's ProMedia Xpress multiscreen decoder and packager for precompression of the UHD video loop. The companies said Harmonic will use its MediaGrid shared storage system, Polaris playout management suite, Spectrum X advanced media server system and Electra X3 advanced media processor for full Ultra HD channel production and transmission later this year.

French ISP Nordnet will make Gilat Satellite Networks' SkyEdge II-c consumer kits part of its Star package that bundles satellite-based Internet, phone and TV services, Gilat said in a Tuesday news release.

Sprint is upping the wireless service ante for DirecTV customers, as the carrier said Thursday it would offer several tiers of plans for DirecTV customers who switch wireless service to Sprint. Previously, Sprint had offered a year of free wireless service -- unlimited talk and text and 2 GB of data per line per month -- for DirecTV customers or for Sprint customers adding a line of service. Now, the company is offering 4 GB and 6 GB monthly plans at $10 and $20 per line, respectively. The offer follows AT&T's completion in July of its acquisition of DirecTV.

HD Plus, the SES-affiliated satellite-TV operator in Germany, plans to launch UHD1, a 24-hour Ultra HD content channel, Friday, said Timo Schneckenburger, managing director-marketing and sales, in Berlin at IFA Thursday. “UHD is the next frontier of television,” Schneckenburger said. “In Germany specifically, we have seen a steadily rising demand for UHD as well.” During daytime hours, all content provided by satellite by SES Astra on UHD1 “will be free for everybody to enjoy,” he said. During prime time, UHD1 “will become a truly exclusive offering for HD Plus customers only,” said Schneckenburger. “UHD1 will be an important catalyst to further drive the conversion from HD to UHD. And as consumer demand for UHD content increases, so will the number of options to broadcast that content.”

DirecTV subscribers with LG webOS smart TVs will have access to streaming 4K and HD content without a dedicated set-top box in LG TVs that are DirecTV Ready, LG said. The models are the first LG TVs certified for the RVU Alliance based on its testing criteria, said an LG spokeswoman. On whether the company will make the free webOS firmware upgrades standard policy, she said “it’s certainly something that we’re evaluating" and the company is pleased with the response it has received from consumers. Among the performance improvements in the webOS update, LG added a My Channels section that allows users to customize their favorite live TV or set-top box channels on the launch bar for quick access. Improved quick settings are said to minimize distraction from content as vertical buttons on the right side of the screen are activated when the Magic Remote cursor passes over them, the company said Tuesday. Input selection is a Quick Menu option in the updated software, giving faster access to more inputs, it said. LG’s webOS update also includes additional streaming content apps from iHeartRadio and Rdio, the company said. Some of its Ultra HD TVs are recommended by Netflix.

The Fashion One TV network began the world’s first global Ultra HD channel, Fashion One 4K, using a SES satellite to deliver the free-to-air channel to North America, South America and Europe, SES said in a Wednesday announcement. Fashion One 4K has a “technical reach” of 100 million homes in North America via SES’s Ultra HD platform on the SES-3 satellite at 103 degrees West and 23 million households in South America on the NSS-806 satellite at 47.5 degrees West, SES said. In Europe, the channel, broadcast under the brand Fashion 4K, reaches more than 116 million households via SES’ prime orbital position at 19.2 degrees East, SES said. Since last year, Fashion One has been upgrading its production format to Ultra HD and now owns “an extensive library” of Ultra HD content with all the content rights, SES said.

Dish has been underpaying what it owes in retransmission license fees, a "deliberate and systemic" practice within the direct broadcast satellite company, Bayou City Broadcasting said in a suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver. Bayou claims Dish paid it far less than it should have in subscriber retransmission fees that were owed in late December through late February. Dish calculated the number of subscribers authorized to receive Bayou City's WEVV-TV Evansville, Indiana, using numbers from when WEVV-TV was temporarily blacked out in a retrans consent fight, and it also unilaterally prorated the payments to Bayou City, the broadcaster said. A 2012 decision by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a similar case points to this being regular Dish practice, Bayou City said. The suit doesn't specify dollar damages but says the amount, not counting interest and costs, exceeds $75,000. Dish didn't comment.

Gilat Satellite Networks' SkyEdge II-c platform will replace an existing very-small-aperture terminal system used now in GeoTelecommunications' satellite broadband service in Russia, Gilat said in a Monday news release. GeoTelecom chose Gilat's SkyEdge after evaluating all the major VSAT competitors, Gilat said.

Despite competing demands for spectrum for everything from wireless communications to weather data, NTIA is "confident we can continue to find the right balance to ensure the United States maintains its commercial wireless leadership, while enabling federal agencies to do important work on behalf of the American people," it said in a blog post Friday. Written by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere Kathryn Sullivan and NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling, the post said that since Hurricane Katrina a decade ago, NOAA is "better positioned to deal with these types of disasters" due to better satellite technology and more investments in supercomputing, all allowing for improved forecasting. At the same time, with the Obama administration pushing both innovation in the wireless industry and maintaining that federal agencies must have the spectrum needed to perform their jobs, NTIA is working with those agencies and the industry "to identify, clear and relocate federal users from bands, where possible, for use by the commercial sector and by promoting spectrum sharing between nonfederal and federal users where that solution is the best option," Strickling and Sullivan said.

ViaSat seeks authority to operate as many as 50,000 of its AT2200 mobile earth terminals to communicate in the L-band with LightSquared's SkyTerra-1 satellite. The AT2200 Aviation Earth Terminal is to be mounted on helicopters or light aircraft, and provide such services as real-time aircraft location updates and providing in-cabin communications and weather data, ViaSat said in an FCC International Bureau filing posted Thursday.