Advanced Television

Inside Satellite

Chris Forrester

Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.

Dish Network: What’s next?

Having now firmly abandoned his attempt to secure more terrestrial wireless spectrum via Sprint/Nextel and Clearwire, Dish Network’s founder Charlie Ergen – never one to be idle – must be pondering his next chess move. It is worth remembering that it wasn’t so very long ago that Dish was pursuing wireless carrier T-Mobile’s assets in […]

July 1, 2013

Success for O3b constellation

Although a day later than planned, the first four satellites in the O3b Networks constellation were successfully launched from the French Guiana site atop a Russian Soyuz rocket on June 25th. This first batch of satellites will now be placed into their correct Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and in stand by for the second batch […]

June 26, 2013

TataSky starved of capacity

Bosses at India’s TataSky DTH operation say they are desperate for additional transponder capacity, and are being deliberately stymied by officials at state-owned Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which administers all satellite activity over the sub-Continent. TataSky says it is contemplating legal actions against ISRO. TataSky uses Insat 4A as its core orbital service. TataSky […]

June 20, 2013

Sea Launch wins Eutelsat order

Eutelsat 3B, currently being built by Astrium, will be orbited by the Sea Launch floating platform in April next year. The order is a major achievement for Sea Launch which has suffered some problems with its Zenit launch rocket. Eutelsat 3B will weigh some 6 tonnes at launch and serve Europe, Africa & the Middle […]

June 18, 2013

Eutelsat’s 30 years in space

This weekend sees Paris-based Eutelsat celebrate 30 years in space. Thirty years ago the operator launched Eutelsat 1-F1,  as the first satellite of a system designed to support communications across Europe. It heralded the start of satellite TV by beaming the first television channels to cable networks in continental Europe and to a nascent group of users who demonstrated the potential of Direct-to-Home reception. A new […]

June 14, 2013

NewSat wants Optus satellites

Singapore Telecom’s Optus satellites are up for sale. Optus operates throughout Australia where it is the second-largest telco. Singapore Telecom is widely reported to be seeking up to $1.9 billion dollars for the satellite assets which include five satellites in orbit. SingTel paid $9.69 billion for the complete Optus business. Australia’s NewSat is now reported […]

June 12, 2013

Stand by for cash return at RTL

ITV, the UK’s leading commercial network, is riding high, helped by an upbeat report from a leading analyst. The situation might be even better in Luxembourg, home to RTL. RTL is Europe’s largest commercial broadcaster and owns the Number 1 networks in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and Luxembourg. But the past few years have […]

June 11, 2013

SES-6 already a commercial success

SES-6, a new satellite serving South and North America, as well as Europe, was only launched on June 4th but is already proving a commercial success. SES says it has sold a large slice of the craft’s available capacity to a Brazilian DTH operator, ‘Oi’ as part of a “significant long-term capacity agreement”. The ‘Oi’ […]

June 5, 2013

CNN culls Baghdad bureau

It might be argued that CNN’s Baghdad news bureau was the essential part in the making of the 24-hour news channel. But that was then. Now, CNN has closed the bureau. CNN’s staffers like Peter Arnett became international news celebrities on the back of CNN’s reporting out of Baghdad especially during the 1991 Gulf War […]

June 3, 2013

EBU: U-HDTV coming into focus

Last week an EBU-sponsored meeting took place in London under its umbrella ‘Beyond HD’ programme.  “Combining the professional forces of the EBU and the DVB project helped to draw all major players to the workshop, which was held at Dolby’s London premises to allow a number of companies that are active in DVB and BeyondHD, […]

May 28, 2013