Spain’s public broadcaster, RTVE, will receive a state subsidy of €472 million in 2021, up €100 million from this year with the TV group losing €51 million in 2020. Since 2018, RTVE’s budget has increased by 2 per cent to €994 million with state subsidies growing by 38 per cent from €341 million in 2018 […]
The European Space Agency (ESA) is asking its 13 member nations to stump up an extra €230 million ($268m) to aid the development of Arianespace’s next generation Ariane 6 rocket as well as its Vega-6 rocket. The bill could rise. To date the Ariane 6 R&D programme has already cost a budgeted €2.83 billion and […]
Ligado Networks has raised $3.85 billion in fresh capital from investors including JPMorgan Chase. Ligado Networks, formerly known as LightSquared has a spectrum “sharing” agreement in place which requires it to pay significant sums to Inmarsat every year. The FCC, back in April, unanimously approved Ligado’s plan to deploy a terrestrial network in the US […]
The continued strong interest and engagement from the investment community in the UK’s independent network sector must be sustained if the UK wants achieve status as a gigabit nation, according to trade association the Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA). A Point Topic report commissioned by INCA shows over £1.76 billion (€1.95bn) worth of private funding […]
Sir Richard Branson’s aircraft-based satellite launching project, Virgin Orbit, is looking to raise up to $200 million, according to a report in the WSJ. Many of Branson’s projects, not least his airline businesses, have been hit hard by the Coronavirus. The WSJ says that Virgin Orbit (which suspends a powerful rocket from beneath one of […]
OneWeb, with its Chapter 11 bankruptcy ending the next three months, has succeeded in obtaining an additional $235 million (€201.8m) in ‘Debtor in Possession’ financing. OneWeb’s bankruptcy court approved the request last week in order to maintain output of its satellites under construction in Florida, plus day-to-day expenses as well as ongoing development work on […]
Prior to its Chapter 11 bankruptcy OneWeb, ordered up a series of 39 satellite launches in May 2015 from Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit aircraft-based rocket launch system. The Branson-backed business also invested in OneWeb and in return received launch options for an additional 100 aircraft-based rocket launches. However, OneWeb cancelled all the launches bar […]
UK digital infrastructure provider Openreach has announced a further 67 locations in its Fibre Cities programme where it will be building its new, future-proof Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology, as part of a new tranche of build. Work will begin in March 2021. The new locations stretch across the nation – from Alloway, in Ayrshire; to […]
A quarter of a million rural homes and businesses across England have been given access to more financial help to get top-of-the-range broadband speeds. More than £22 million (€23.8m) of additional funding is being invested into the UK Government’s broadband voucher scheme, which subsidises the costs of building gigabit-capable broadband networks to hard-to-reach areas. Digital […]
Virgin Orbit, the satellite launch business headed by Sir Richard Branson, has reportedly hired a couple of investment banks. Normally this suggests the company is looking for strategic investors or perhaps even a sale or merger. According to Space Intel Report (SIR) the Branson company has hired Lion Tree Advisors as well as Perella Weinberg […]