Tim Warren

Sirius XM will keep its subscription rate at $12.95 per month through the end of the year as part of a class action suit settlement, the company said in an SEC filing on Monday. The lawsuit had said Sirius XM had violated antitrust law and the settlement is dependent on court approval. The settlement coincides with the FCC’s ongoing review of the rate freeze, which was an FCC condition of approving the combining Sirius and XM. The FCC is in the process of deciding if it should let the cap expire as planned on July 28. The settlement agreement was reached on Thursday, according to the filing.

The FCC is expected to let Sirius XM’s merger condition price cap expire, industry executives said. The commission is still reviewing its options, said an agency official. The condition caps the satellite radio company’s price at $12.95 per month, and is set to expire July 28. The FCC is looking at the cap to determine if it should be allowed to expire. The agency approved XM’s purchase by Sirius with conditions including the price cap in 2008.

LightSquared’s recent discussion with the FCC about a technical working group is raising real concerns for the co-chair of the group, the U.S. GPS Industry Council. USGIC Executive Director Michael Swiek voiced worries that the LightSquared meeting, which was only between LightSquared representatives and FCC staff (CD May 10 p14), could “mislead or cause confusions with respect to the status of Working Group activities,” it said in an FCC filing. LightSquared and the USGIC are heading an FCC-required working group that’s investigating potential interference issues between LightSquared’s planned terrestrial service and GPS service operating in neighboring spectrum. A final report is due to the FCC by June 15.

The FCC Media Bureau dismissed part of Dish Network’s program access complaint against Madison Square Garden and Cablevision. The bureau dismissed the third count of Dish’s complaint, in which Dish alleged Cablevision was using improper influence over MSG’s decisions on the licensing of regional sports networks to the DBS provider. Cablevision was dismissed as a defendant, said an order released Friday afternoon and signed by bureau Chief Bill Lake. Verizon and AT&T have filed program access complaints against Cablevision and MSG, though no decision has been made public.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is a “strict liability statute,” leaving a company responsible for calls dialed by others to market the original company’s goods, said California, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio in comments with the FCC. Those states, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department brought suit against Dish Network for TCPA violations. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Cincinnati, asked that the FCC, rather than the courts, make the first decision about whether Dish is liable for improper telemarketing calls made by contractors working for it (CD Jan 3 p5). A lower court dismissed the original claims, but the decision was appealed. The appeals court said the FCC has primary jurisdiction because the likely penalties were below the $75,000 minimum for federal courts to have jurisdiction, because the FCC has the expertise to handle it, and because an FCC decision would apply nationwide. The comments are in docket 11-50.

DirecTV has starting working on contingency plans for Q3, when it typically markets its NFL Sunday Ticket, to deal with the possible NFL lockout, the company said Thursday during its Q1 earnings call. It’s too early to say exactly how a lockout would affect DirecTV’s earnings, it said. The labor dispute between NFL players and owners threatens to take away DirecTV’s popular NFL Sunday Ticket as a subscription marketing tool, though there are many scenarios over how the fight will play out, said CEO Mike White. Although about a quarter of the company’s Q3 gross-adds took the NFL Sunday Ticket in 2010, observers shouldn’t say that number of subscribers will automatically be gone if the NFL doesn’t play its season, he said. DirecTV is working on other promotions to help deal with the impact of a lost season, he said.

Dish Network and EchoStar’s $500 million settlement with TiVo marked a win for all sides involved, Dish CEO and EchoStar Chairman Charlie Ergen said on the DBS company’s earnings call Monday. The settlement includes an initial payment of $300 million to TiVo, with the last $200 million paid out in six equal annual payments between 2012 and 2017, the companies said in a news release Monday. The agreement ends all pending litigation between the companies “with prejudice” and dissolves all injunctions against Dish and EchoStar, the companies said. The settlement effectively ends several expensive years of litigation between the two companies over Dish’s alleged infringement of TiVo’s time-warp patent, which allows DVR recording of one program while watching another.

Two senators took issue with the interference potential of LightSquared’s wireless service with GPS operations. They asked colleagues to join in petitioning the FCC to be more involved in the review process. Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., sent a “dear colleague” letter to the rest of the Senate on Thursday asking for support in pushing the agency to more closely oversee LightSquared’s testing. LightSquared is reviewing the interference potential through an FCC-required working group that includes wireless, GPS and federal interests. That group is supposed to present a final report to the agency by June 15.

Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen likely is still very interested in purchasing bankrupt S-band licensee TerreStar, according to recent filings and interviews with satellite industry executives. Dish outlined its plans to use DBSD’s mobile satellite service (MSS) assets for a mobile spectrum offering in a FCC license transfer application last week (CD April 12 p7). Dish spent a considerable amount of time on how the combined S-band spectrum of DBSD and TerreStar would effect the status quo. Dish is in the process of purchasing DBSD, which is in bankruptcy, and sister company EchoStar holds most of the first lien debt of TerreStar, also in bankruptcy.

Dish Network plans to use DBSD’s technology and spectrum for mobile broadband services, offered “both on a stand-alone basis and in a consumer-friendly bundle with its multichannel video services,” Dish said in a license transfer application at the FCC International Bureau. FCC approval would allow DBSD’s parent company ICO Global to transfer its satellite, several S-band, Ku-band and Ka-band earth stations and S-band mobile satellite service/ancillary terrestrial component blanket license to Dish, the filing said. DBSD controls 20 MHz of S-band spectrum.