Brian Roberts, CEO at Comcast – and arguably one of the most powerful figures in UK broadcasting – speaking at an advertising industry event in London last week, praised Sky and in a major feature in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper there was much comment about the next step for the entertainment giant. One option, according […]

Jeff Bezos’ mega-constellation Project Kuiper is advertising (at ‘Amazon Jobs’) for a “Senior Opto-Mechanical Engineer”. This is just one position amongst many which suggests that Project Kuiper is dramatically ramping up its hiring, and with a specification that calls for laser linking between satellites. This position needs a talent to fulfil a task specified as: […]

Sami Kassab, a media analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP last week held a variety of meetings in Washington DC in connection with the C-Band Alliance’s plan for the auction of satellite spectrum over the US for re-use by the 5G industry. Kassab met with a couple of opponents to the scheme as well as key […]

Eutelsat, no longer a member of the C-Band Alliance (CBA), has told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that it should only pay out a maximum of $7 billion in payout to the satellite operators (including Eutelsat) in a planned auction of US spectrum for re-use for 5G. Bloomberg Intelligence, in a report late on January […]

Comcast unveiled its Q4 numbers on January 23rd, and reported earnings rising an extremely healthy overall 26 per cent helped by broadband growth. The downside drag was its entertainment unit NBCUniversal as well as miserable box office revenues for its latest movie, Cats, and a 49 per cent fall in its film unit’s profits. Chairman/CEO […]

Skylo has just raised a total of $103 million (€92.9m) in Series B funding for its proposed Internet of Things satellite-based service. Skylo had been in ‘stealth’ mode and according to Skylo, the company will bring instant, affordable and ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity to millions of machines, sensors and devices, even in the […]

Comments from media analysts at investment bank Exane/BNPP suggest that Q4 results from Netflix were very much in line with expectations, and certainly few could complain at paid subscriptions growing 21 per cent year on year. Globally the streaming service beat net paid additions expectations by adding of 8.8 million in the quarter-year, vs consensus […]

Last week’s news that Eutelsat 5 West B could only work at about half-capacity because of a failed solar array had one important slice of good news. The ‘hosted payload’ on the craft which comprised the GEO-3 apparatus needed to provide a portion of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) is still working nominally. […]

Last week a fresh submission to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was made by the C-Band Alliance. Investment bank Exane/BNPP has issued its own review of the action, and says “CBA is back on track” with its new proposal. Moreover, the bank’s satellite analyst Sami Kassab has rated both SES and Eutelsat as “OUTPERFORM” stock. […]

Eutelsat 5 West B satellite, which was launched in October 2019 with one of its solar arrays non-functioning, has been saved. Eutelsat has confirmed the problem but says about 45 per cent of the satellite’s planned capacity can still be used. The satellite is insured for €173 million. The satellite will come into service later […]