AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV should include conditions of consumer choice, supplier diversity and union labor, said Democratic San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee in a comment posted Thursday in FCC docket 14-90. After the acquisition, AT&T should commit to a goal of 25 percent of total procurement to come from certified diverse businesses, Lee said. "Historically, AT&T has shown its commitment to diversity as a leader in corporate supplier diversity; targeting their procurement to be spent with certified minority, women, and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises." DirecTV should transition to a unionized and fairly represented workforce after the acquisition, he said. In the first phase of the acquisition, AT&T/DirecTV should offer stand-alone products to maintain uninterrupted service for their existing customers, Lee said. "While bundling could help reduce cost, I value giving customers a choice." Consumers across the U.S. will benefit from the transaction, he said. San Francisco residents need affordable, high-quality Internet, TV, phone and video products, he said. "We cannot tackle these critical challenges alone," Lee said. "AT&T and DIRECTV share my commitment to support our communities, and I look forward to continuing to partner with both of them to lift our residents up and make sure our working families share in the prosperity of our City."

The Copyright Royalty Board said in Wednesday’s Federal Register that its judges are ending the proceeding begun March 30 to determine royalty rates for secondary transmission of broadcasts by satellite carriers and distributors. The judges decided the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization allows royalty rates that took effect Dec. 31 to remain current and are subject only to regular annual fee adjustments, the board said.

Globalstar Europe Satellite Services and Fagor Electronica, a Spanish technology and fleet tracking specialist, agreed to deliver satellite tracking technology for the trucking industry with Globalstar's SmartOne, Globalstar said Thursday. The technology is being distributed and deployed through Skytracking, Fagor's authorized distributor in Colombia, it said. Globalstar's SmartOne satellite technology will help transportation companies monitor and track a fleet of vehicles, even if they're outside Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) range, Globalstar said. The system reports the location of a vehicle and information about engine time usage and total mileage, it said.

Dish Network launched WeatherNation, a multiformat, local, regional and national TV weather news service, in a multiyear agreement, Dish said Thursday. The agreement includes a national weather information channel and an interactive app for local weather, available on Dish's Hopper and other select set-top boxes, it said. WeatherNation, Channel 215, is available to Dish customers for a six-week free preview, Dish said. Dish, Motel 6 and World Cinema, which delivers satellite TV to hotels, also completed a multiyear agreement for Dish and World Cinema to deliver high definition satellite TV service and high-speed Internet access to over 500 of Motel 6's properties, Dish said Wednesday. Motel 6 chose Dish's smartbox to deliver in-room entertainment, Dish said. Smartbox can be upgraded with new features through downloads via satellite, without requiring new equipment, it said.

Hughes Network Systems and EchoStar met with FCC International Bureau staff April 16 to discuss a document titled "Part 25 Rulemaking: An Opportunity to Enable Operational Flexibility, Regulatory Certainty, and Technology Neutrality to Benefit U.S. Consumers,” EchoStar said in an ex parte notice posted Monday in docket 12-267. EchoStar distributed the document at the meeting, it said.

Dish Network and the Weather Channel signed a multiyear renewal contract, Dish said Tuesday. Customers will continue to have access to The Weather Channel and its interactive app on Dish's Hopper and other select set-top boxes, Dish said. The agreement includes over-the-top streaming rights for live and VOD content, it said. The Weather Channel will be added to Sling TV by July, Dish said.

The FCC should encourage service providers to adopt the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council’s best practices on battery backup power instead of imposing a mandatory requirement, said EchoStar subsidiary Hughes Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner and other company staff during a Thursday meeting with members of the Public Safety Bureau and Office of Strategic Planning & Analysis. Hughes staffers also discussed what they believe is the best approach to implementing the CSRIC battery backup best practices, the company said in an ex parte filing Monday.

Raytheon received a $103 million Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contract to supply a space-based system that will make air travel more efficient and safe, Raytheon said Tuesday. The Raytheon system will be part of the FAA's Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), which improves GPS signal accuracy for use by general and commercial aircraft, it said. WAAS will allow more access to remote landing sites, direct flight routing and precision landing, without dependence on ground-based infrastructure, it said. Raytheon will develop a payload that will be included in a new geostationary (GEO) satellite and ground uplink stations to support the WAAS system in U.S. airspace, it said. The GEO 6 and 5 system, which was awarded to Raytheon in 2012, will replace two WAAS GEO payloads at the end of their service leases, it said. The WAAS GEO 6 payload will be launched in Q2 of 2017, and the system will enter a 10-year operational phase in 2019, Raytheon said.

In the U.K. and Ireland, Sky has connected more than 1 million boxes in the year to date, “taking our connected base to almost 7 million homes,” the company said Tuesday in its Q3 earnings announcement. This has driven on-demand downloads to more than 300 million during Q3, up 63 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, Sky said. In Italy, roughly a third of Sky customers have now connected their boxes to the Internet with the connected home strategy being deployed in Germany for the first time this quarter, it said. “This growing penetration of connected devices is enabling us to drive growth in revenues from new products and services.” For example, more than half a million customers in the U.K. and Ireland have purchased one or more movies from the Sky Store, and the service regularly ranks No. 1 or 2 among digital retailers for new releases, Sky said.

Six satellite operators and manufacturers unveiled the SAT>IP Alliance, formalizing a coalition started last year to develop compatible hardware and software for the SAT>IP technology. It was announced at NAB Show in Las Vegas, said an SES news release Wednesday. The alliance includes ALi Corporation, Hispasat, MaxLinear, Nagra, Panasonic and SES. The organization will promote the use of the SAT>IP protocol in the industry and improve the standard, SES said. SAT>IP technology "converts satellite signals into IP at the reception point using a small server, which may be located in the satellite dish or in the user's home, and distributing the signal to the different IP devices such as tablets, smartphones and laptops," SES said. It allows for high-quality content via satellite, SES said.