Text providers would need to support texting to 988 when the nationwide suicide prevention hotline goes live on July 16, under proposed rules to be voted on at the FCC's Nov, 18 meeting. Also on the agenda announced Wednesday are an enhanced competition incentive program aimed at making more spectrum available for small carriers and tribal entities, a proposal to let broadcasters verify the patterns for FM directional antennas using computer modeling, and approval of U.S. market access for a French microsatellite constellation. See our bulletin here.

Last year's White House cybersecurity space policy directive (see 2009040042) helped raise awareness of the issue, but public sector and government implementation has been lagging, said George Washington University Space Policy Institute Director Scott Pace on a CompTIA panel Tuesday. CompTIA Senior Director-Public Sector David Logsdon said the National Cybersecurity Center's Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center plans to report in November on perceived gaps in the space policy directive. Pace said he had hoped space agencies would have started talking more explicitly in acquisitions and requests for proposals about cybersecurity expectations. Until such principles start being part of competitive considerations in acquisitions, "it's hard to get companies to start taking that seriously," he said, noting interagency discussions are needed. He said government should be more aggressive in industry outreach with Department of Homeland Security threat briefings, and more active in international engagement via standards bodies. Added Logsdon, “If we don't do it, the Chinese will." The space policy directive deliberately took "a soft approach" instead of a prescriptive one, to get grassroots buy-in, said Lockheed Martin Vice President-Technology Policy and Regulation Jennifer Warren. She said there's more to be done in adoption and implementation, but the directive had some success in raising awareness about the need to think of cybersecurity beyond just satellites to the broader ecosystem including earth stations and supply chains. Timelines for implementation should be aspirational, with voluntary steps companies could take "to get that gold star." A lot of focus has been on technical issues like standards and nomenclature, but more thought should go to nontechnical issues of personnel security and insider threats, Pace said. "Every traitor in prison had a security clearance." Viasat Government Systems Chief Technology Officer Phil Mar urged paying more attention to smaller, emerging space companies, where cybersecurity often is a last-minute concern.

Smaller players and new entrants in the commercial space sector need to be aware of cybersecurity threats and make cybersecurity a focus when designing their systems, panelists said Friday at an FCBA cybersecurity committee webinar. Space cybersecurity needs to be holistic, looking at systems from ground stations and antennas to spectrum and software, not just the satellites themselves, said Jaisha Wray, an NTIA associate administrator who until last year was National Security Council Cybersecurity Directorate international cyber policy director. Wray said standard cybersecurity practices can secure space systems, but an added complication is that space systems are physically difficult to access once deployed and cybersecurity activities must be done remotely. That's a big reason cybersecurity must be integrated into system design, she said. Panelists were bearish on cybersecurity regulation. "The second you write a prescriptive regulation ... it's already too late," with hackers and malware ready to circumvent rules, said Inmarsat Senior Vice President-Global Regulatory Donna Bethea-Murphy. She said many operators design systems to be encrypted and secure and comply with such standards. Wray said development of the White House's 2020 cybersecurity space policy (see 2009040042) focused on trying to ensure following voluntary principles. The U.S. can "take it on the road," talk to international partners, make suggestions to other governments and collaborate. Wray said the State Department has been carrying this forward. She said international companies joining the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center is a hopeful sign.

Multiple states likely won't have adopted legislation on rollout of 988 services when the suicide prevention hotline goes live nationwide July 16, mental health policy advocates told us. That could result in impeded service for states that haven't set up funding mechanisms for call centers to handle the increased volume of call traffic expected. Some state legislators that faced opposition this year after carriers raised fee concerns hope to pass bills in 2022.

U.S. airlines will likely start offering free in-flight connectivity in the next three to five years, which will help drive the satellite aeronautical connectivity market, said SES CEO Steve Collar Wednesday in a company webinar. Data capacity on SES-17, to launch at week's end, is aimed especially at the North American aviation market, he said. He said SES-17 and O3b's forthcoming mPower low earth orbit constellation will be connected, with customers moving from one to the other seamlessly, and that hybridization is SES' first step toward a global interoperable network. Northern Sky Research analyst Brad Grady said 50% of global satellite data capacity demand will likely be from the Americas by 2030, with demand for mobility capacity expected to grow 17-fold, government capacity demand growing 19-fold, and enterprise capacity demand growing 12-fold. Grady said there were 3 Tbps of geostationary satellite capacity and 0.3 Tbps of non-geotatioanry capacity available worldwide in 2020, and that should grow to 32 Tbps of GEO capacity and 140 Tbps of NGSO capacity by 2030.

Video piracy is worsening, with viewers often not aware they're watching pirated content, and some parts of the streaming ecosystem aren't focusing on the problem, experts said Tuesday at a video piracy symposium. Piracy was already a concern when the COVID-19 pandemic set in, resulting in more video consumption and increased piracy, said Steven Hawley, Piracy Monitor managing director.

Data surpassed video as a revenue stream for commercial satellite operators in 2020, and data revenue should grow sizably over the rest of this decade while video shrinks, said Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm on an NSR webinar Thursday. He said COVID-19 affected some satcom service areas such as aviation connectivity, but consumer broadband and fixed data continue growing. Business areas affected by the pandemic should recover by 2023, said Palerm. He said tens of Tbps of capacity is coming from low earth orbit constellations, but a lot will be over areas with no addressable markets, like oceans, meaning a 5% to 10% utilization rate for non-geostationary orbit high throughput satellite data by 2030. Asked about the possibility of a communications satellite bubble that could burst, Palerm said 2021 is very different from the downturn 20 years ago. He said the telecom industry is more open to adopting satellites into telco networks. Whether low earth orbit constellations will be financially successful remains to be seen, “but for sure they are going to launch," he said.

Wi-Fi 6, now about 2 years old, should start getting wide adoption among ISPs starting by year's end, with it becoming relatively commonplace in households toward Q2, said Patrick Moreno, Zyxel Communications product marketing manager, during a webinar Thursday. He said many providers remain "in the discovery phase" about Wi-Fi 6. He said the latest generation of Wi-Fi has speeds 30% to 40% faster than Wi-Fi 5 and increased capacity for more connected devices, plus lower latency for time-sensitive applications. He said Wi-Fi 6 routers will be backward compatible for Wi-Fi 4 and 5. A variation -- Wi-Fi 6E, which came out earlier this year -- adds the 6 GHz band, which will help alleviate congestion in the crowded 2.4 GHz band and the starting-to-crowd 5 GHz band, Moreno said. He said 6E gateways and extenders are in development.

Though one National Public Safety Telecommunications Council representative told Gogo he no longer had concerns about a Gogo Business Aviation waiver (see 2110130063), "NPSTC's position of concern has not changed," Spectrum Committee Chairman Don Root emailed us Wednesday. Root said NPSTC's 16 organizations representing public safety communications interests haven't reached consensus on whether there's no longer a concern. Gogo said Thursday it "remains eager ‘to satisfactorily resolve any concerns raised by NPSTC, Motorola or other stakeholders" about its waiver request and it "will continue to reach out and address any public safety concerns raised by any party or representative.”

Many commercial space operators are designing their systems with cybersecurity protection in mind, but "there are still gaps we have to address," said Commerce Department Deputy Secretary Don Graves Wednesday during a Commerce/Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity symposium. Cyberattacks are one of the easiest ways to disrupt or manipulate satellites, and operators need to evaluate their systems using the National Institute of Standards and Technology cybersecurity framework, he said. Bob Kolasky, head of DHS' National Risk Management Center, said federal government action on President Joe Biden's cybersecurity executive order issued earlier this year (see 2105130065) could have a cascading effect on private sector supply chains.