“Prompt access to [C-band] is now critical” for 5G over the US, says Verizon’s CEO Hans Vestberg. He met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai last week and in a follow-up letter to the FCC, stated that he had encouraged the FCC to “move forward quickly to make spectrum in the 3.7 to 4.2 GHz band […]
Mega-satellite operator OneWeb is creating 150 new jobs at its London offices. The jobs are based at OneWeb’s Global Operations Centre in White City, a few miles West of central London but near the BBC and other broadcasters. OneWeb is looking to launch its global broadband service by 2021. OneWeb is tapping into some backing […]
South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC is asking the country’s government to provide it with a Rand 3.2 billion (€1.9bn) guarantee to help stop a blackout of broadcasts. The guarantee is needed to permit SABC to secure commercial borrowings. The country’s Sunday Times newspaper reported that SABC is “saddled” with debts to local authorities, signal distributors […]
Last week, a French Tribunal found – apparently decisively – that Saudi Arabia-based Arabsat is distributing pirated signals from beoutQ. The legal action had been brought by Qatar’s BeIN Media Group which has suffered badly at the hands of the pirates. beIN’s case was brought before the President of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris […]
Red Eléctrica has organised a €500 million credit line in order to partly fund its purchase of Spanish satellite operator Hispasat. Red Eléctrica, in a statement, said the funding was secured on June 12th and will run for a 5 year period, potentially extendable to 7 years. Red Eléctrica agreed in February to buy Abertis’ […]
Just one month until age verification for adult content is launched in the UK, the digital rights and freedom campaigner Open Rights Group has warned that the Government is failing to protect the privacy and security of adults who watch such content online. Open Rights Group has analysed the BBFC’s Age-verification Certificate Standard, which outlines […]
Vimeo, the online video platform, has announced support for a new royalty-free video codec, AV1. The AV1 codec enables HD and UHD video content to be streamed to audiences at a reduced bitrate without compromising visual quality. “AV1 is setting a new standard for video compression and delivery over the web, and will greatly improve […]
La Liga, Spain’s top flight football league, has been fined €250,000 for using its mobile phone app to spy on millions of fans as part of a ploy to catch venues showing unlicensed broadcasts of matches. The country’s data protection agency said the league’s app, which was marketed as a tool to track game scores, schedules […]
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit aircraft satellite launch company is suing OneWeb – in which Virgin was originally a shareholding partner – over a cancelled contract to launch batches of its satellites. Virgin commenced its action on June 4th in New York’s Southern District Court, and OneWeb must file a response by June 25th. The […]
Ajit Pai, the Chairman of the FCC, along with two of his key Commissioners, met with the FCC oversight committee on June 12th at the US Senate on Capitol Hill, and were specifically questioned on the C-Band Alliance’s scheme to reassign 180 MHz of spectrum for 5G over the US. What followed were very timely […]