EchoStar-owned Hughes Network Systems is joiining the new consortium buying bankrupt OneWeb. Hughes will join the UK government and Bharti Global as part-owners. Hughes will, in principle, invest $50 million into the consortium. “Additionally,” says the Hughes statement, “[We] will continue as a trusted technology and distribution partner to OneWeb, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) […]
UK comms regulator Ofcom has published updated advice to the Government on the airwaves that could be used to improve broadband for rail passengers. In 2018, Ofcom provided initial advice to the UK Government on how demand for on-board data services for passengers is likely to grow in the coming years; and on the types […]
The UK is keen on establishing so-called Spaceports, whether in Scotland or the West of England. It has just signed a Treaty-level agreement with the US which allows use of US-built rockets from British locations. The UK’s Space Agency (UKSA) says that a US-UK Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA) agreed in June potentially opens up activity […]
Elon Musk, flushed with the stock market success of his Tesla vehicle business, is seeking to raise more cash. This time the cash would go to SpaceX. This fund-raising would be the N-series and Musk, according to Bloomberg, wants at least $500 million and possibly $1 billion which would give his rocket-launching business a valuation […]
Paris-based consultancy Euroconsult says that despite the virus pandemic it still expects around 1000 smallish satellites to be launched each year throughout this decade. The drive will largely come from would-be broadband suppliers with mega-constellation operators accounting for around half of all launches and one-fifth of market value. Euroconsult’s forecast (contained within Prospects for the […]
The recent launch of Virgin Telco throughout Spain seems to have had a positive impact on Euskaltel’s performance. In the first half of the year, the nation’s fifth-largest telco managed to increase both its profit and subscribers. Up to June 2020, the company made a profit of €35.5 million, up 55 per cent versus the […]
In the first three months of its fiscal year, Vodafone Spain managed to increase the number of its subscribers, but experienced a 6.9 per cent decrease in revenues per service to €920 million and a 8.2 per cent decline in total revenues to €994.1 million. As for subscribers, Vodafone managed to capture 57,000 new TV […]
A report from the IoT market research firm Berg Insight says that the global number of cellular IoT subscribers increased by 40 per cent during 2019 to reach 1.56 billion. Growth was driven by strong uptake across the main markets for IoT solutions comprising China, North America and Western Europe. Due to the global Covid-19 […]
July 22nd saw Eutelsat announce that French telco Orange had taken all of the available capacity targeting France on Eutelsat’s current ‘Konnect’ satellite. Sami Kassab, an equity analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP, says that while neither party disclosed the size or value of the contract the deal was likely to involve 5-10Gb/s of High Throughput […]
UK senior civil servants have formally warned the government that its commitment to put $500 million into a joint venture with Bharti Global to buy bankrupt satellite operator OneWeb has a high risk of losing all the investment. OneWeb is currently totally unprofitable and it is likely to need considerable further investments for satellite building […]