Continuing its implementation of STELA (a.k.a. the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010), the Commission last week released an Order granting the application of satellite television provider DISH Network, LLC, and allowing DISH to once again import distant, out-of-market broadcast television signals.  In its Order approving DISH’s application, the Commission agreed that the DBS provider:  1.) had initiated local-into-local carriage in all 210 markets, including 29 markets in which it had not previously offered local signals; 2.) is predicted to provide a good quality satellite signal to 90% or more of the households in each of the 29 previously unserved markets; and 3.) that there are no technical failures that would preclude DISH’s continued compliance with these first two elements.  Having met these requirements, DISH has satisfied the statutory requirements established by STELA and may now once again avail itself of the compulsory copyright license in order to offer distant television broadcast signals to qualified subscribers.  With the Commission’s Order, the previous court ruling from 2006 that had barred DISH (then Echostar Communications) from offering distant signals is effectively moot and DISH is back in the business of importing distant signals.  This is a big step for DISH and one that it pushed hard to include in STELA.  And of course the upside is that now DISH subscribers in all 210 television markets have access to local television stations via DBS — provided that DISH and the local stations have reached agreements for carriage, which was not yet the case according to the one party who commented in the FCC’s proceeding.