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.

Fortuna CEO: “SpaceX prospects wide open”

Justus Parmar, CEO of Fortuna Investments, and a close observer of the satellite industry, suggests that Elon Musk is only just getting started in terms of potential size and impact of SpaceX on satellite. Parmar’s team are already investors in the space sector, and according to a Constellations conversation with Kratos Defence, he suggests that […]

January 23, 2024

AST SpaceMobile gets major cash injections

Texas-based AST SpaceMobile, which wants to provide a global satellite-to-smartphone services, has received some major investments from major telcos and Google. But there’s also bad news. The cash, totalling some $263 million (€241.4m), comes from AT&T, Vodafone and Google. The finance, according to consultant Dr Tim Farrar (of TMF Association) suggests that the extra cash […]

January 22, 2024

Viasat’s debt ratings adjusted by Fitch

Fitch Ratings has affirmed satellite operator Viasat and its subsidiaries’ Long-Term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at ‘BB-‘ and removed all ratings from Rating Watch Negative (RWN) – which is good news for the company. Fitch has resolved the RWN as it expects Viasat’s debt leverage to decline and sustain within the current EBITDA leverage sensitivities […]

January 19, 2024

SES vs Intelsat rages on

Back on August 1st 2023, your author somewhat optimistically wrote ‘SES vs Intelsat nears conclusion‘. How wrong that was. The headline was based on a successful appeal won by SES and an instruction made by the appeal court Judge Robert Payne to the lower court to find in SES’s favour. “The judgement of the Bankruptcy […]

January 18, 2024

Satellites share prices still disappoint bank

Investment bank BNPP, in a major examination of three key satellite operators and their share prices, says SES, Eutelsat and Telesat have remained under pressure – with only Telesat making some modest headway because of its progress with its Lightspeed low Earth orbit constellation. In a self-examination of what it got right (and wrong) in […]

January 17, 2024

Momentus in trouble

Not everything in the space industry’s garden is in perfect shape. Space company Momentus once valued at over $1 billion, is running out of money and does not have a financial lifeline. On January 12th it postponed its next mission. Momentus was established emerged with seed funding in November 2018 and was created to o […]

January 15, 2024

Elon speaks “Reliability, Reusable Rockets”

Elon Musk addressed an ‘all hands’ staff Town Hall meeting at the SpaceX Starship site in south Texas on January 12th. He said that the “three Rs: Reliability, Reusable Rockets” were key to SpaceX’s success. Other news also emerged. Some mundane, others perhaps more important. The mundane was that there will be new restaurant, café […]

January 15, 2024

SpaceX serious about Direct-to-Phone

A slew of statements from SpaceX executives – and a serious of job openings – suggest SpaceX is serious about the prospects of ‘direct-to-phone’ connectivity from its Starlink satellites. SpaceX staffers have been testing signals from the half-dozen suitably equipped Starlink satellites now in orbit. The tests have used T-Mobile’s terrestrial network. SpaceX says it […]

January 12, 2024

Ergen starts fiscal manoeuvres

Charlie Ergen has been busy mapping out his chess-type strategy for his combined Dish Network and EchoStar businesses. Now trading under the ‘Dish’ banner, Ergen has spun off a batch of his terrestrial spectrum licences into a new subsidiary and this move helped rocket Dish’s share price by an impressive 41 per cent on January […]

January 11, 2024

Vodafone rules out Starlink D2D

Vodafone says it will not support Starlink with the satellite operator’s plans for orbiting ‘direct-to-device’ and cellular connectivity. Starlink last week orbited an initial six satellites capable of direct connection and plans to launch more than 800 extra satellites during 2024. Vodafone has ruled out a partnership with Starlink because it has already signed an […]

January 9, 2024