Moreover, users of the satellite receivers were involuntarily taking part in attacks and might have experienced reduced device performance during these occurrences.
the article isn't 100% clear, but this line suggested to me that they were being used to perform attacks themselves (although it also states "Allegedly, the functionality was needed to counter the attacks of a competing entity.")
Satellite receiver usually means a thingy for receiving satellite TV. Receiver means that it only receives signals but cannot transmit any.
I assume that these are internet enabled. Maybe just for updates, or maybe to also do streaming. So, I take it to mean that they do the normal internet DDOS thing on the side, in a way that has nothing to do with satellites.
It's too bad we don't have details about the other company involved that they were targeting. Seems like the sort of thing that could rapidly escalated -- blinding all of your competitors birds on purpose. If those birds are in Geosynch, you don't even need to be in the country to do it -- just same longitude, approximately.