Matt Daneman

Satellite operators increasingly are struggling with a data price war, as prices have dropped precipitously in some parts of the world over the past 12-18 months, Christopher Baugh, president of satellite market research firm Northern Sky Research, said Thursday during the annual Hosted Payload and Smallsat Summit. "It's bargain basement pricing," Baugh said. "The yield on a per-megahertz basis is particularly low. [And] these lower prices are here to stay."

The fate of a DirecTV legal fight with former customers likely will rest on the issue of how involved the Supreme Court believes the federal government should be in contractual disputes, based on the item the justices kept returning to during oral argument Tuesday in DirecTV v. Amy Imburgia. "It generally is a matter of state law," Justice Samuel Alito said, challenging Christopher Landau of Kirkland & Ellis, representing DirecTV, to define the border where the federal government should and should not involve itself in such contractual disputes.

LTE-U's backers and critics agree the technology shows immense promise. Beyond that, consensus starts to break down on how to best implement it so as not to cause interference with Wi-Fi, according to panelists at a Monday night FCBA seminar on Wi-Fi-LTE-U. "These unlicensed bands are great [and] there's promise we can still avoid the rocks," said panelist Paul Margie of Harris Wiltshire, whose clients include wireless companies and ISPs.

The Supreme Court case pitting DirecTV against ex-customers over its arbitration policy points up what critics contend are problems with forced arbitration, while backers say it's a cost-effective way of settling disputes over small sums. During oral argument Tuesday, at issue will be language in customers' contracts requiring arbitration for disputes unless applicable state law forbids it, and whether the arbitration agreement is unenforceable. That is according to briefs in the case and comments from participants.

The FCC is considering a revamp of broadcast foreign ownership rules to bring them in line with the same review processes governing foreign ownership of common carriers and aeronautical licensees in what Chairman Tom Wheeler said was regulatory simplification. The broadcast ownership NPRM -- docket 15-235 -- is part of the agency's tentative agenda released Thursday for its Oct. 22 meeting.

Don't expect to see many mergers or acquisitions in the satellite industry despite the benefits of such consolidation, Intelsat Chief Financial Officer Michael McDonnell said Tuesday at a Deutsche Bank's investor conference. The few such M&A transactions in the industry -- such as Eutelsat's 2014 takeover of SatMex -- sometimes come with high price tags, and many smaller operators' governments aren't as interested in consolidation as their owners, McDonnell said. He declined to address directly what he called rumors of Intelsat considering a sale of some assets, except to say its satellite fleet is designed so most of them carry a variety of customer sets and they are supported by a common platform. "We don't really have any assets we consider to be non-core," McDonnell said. While the company's network services revenue has been declining in recent years, its high-throughput Epic satellite platform going online next year opens the door to expansion into markets such as connected cars and IoT and "is our path back to growth," McDonnell said. The company has four launches planned for 2016 -- Intelsat 31 and 29e in Q1 and 33e and 36 in the second half of the year -- and most of its satellites planned in coming years are Epics, he said.

The mounds of data the FCC seeks in Charter Communications' efforts to buy Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, coupled with Friday comments by FCC General Counsel Jon Sallet, point to the transactions not being a shoo-in for regulatory approval, cable industry watchers said. The agency last week gave the three an Oct. 13 deadline to provide answers to lengthy requests for information about the companies, their policies and plans, and about market conditions (see 1509220057).

The FCC shot clock is two weeks in for Charter Communications' buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. The $89.1 billion deal already attracted considerable support from the likes of the AIDS Service Foundation of Kansas City and watershed preservation group Milwaukee Riverkeeper, alongside TV outfits such as Herring Networks and PBS Hawaii.

Broadcasters and allies are howling over the FCC's increased public advocacy for repeal of the syndicated exclusivity and network nonduplication rules. "Chairman [Tom] Wheeler appears to be on a singular crusade to eliminate exclusivity rules that serve an important part of the overall localism landscape," NAB said in a statement Tuesday in response to Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake's blog. Lake said that the exclusivity rules "are past their prime in light of the significant statutory and marketplace changes that have occurred since their adoption."

The video market remains divided on whether it's suffering from a lack of real, effective competition or whether it's replete with competitors. "Choice and competition are now the hallmarks of the market for the delivery of video programming," NCTA said in replies in docket 15-158 as the FCC prepares its 17th video competition report. Pointing to such sentiments, NAB said it "wonders if these commenters are observing the same marketplace as everyone else." In initial comments last month, the FCC received a variety of suggestions for improving the video market (see 1508210033). The deadline for replies was Monday.