In-flight entertainment and connectivity operator Gogo is raising $900 million in new Senior Notes in order to pay off its 2022-due Senior Notes borrowing. Gogo, in releasing its preliminary Q1 revenue guidance, said that a combination of better-than-expected Commercial Aviation revenues, and lower than expected overall operating and satellite communication costs contributed to its much […]
A leading satellite analyst, in a comprehensive report, has said the potential financial benefits likely to flow from a ‘market-based approach’ to selling 180 MHz of C-band spectrum over the US are “far from priced in” to the 4 satellite operators involved. The quartet are Intelsat and SES (with some 90 per cent of the […]
Singapore-based Kacific Broadband Satellite has signed a significant contract with the island nation of Tonga. The deal covers satellite capacity with Tonga’s outlying islands, and reflects the nation’s need for secure back-up in the event of problems similar to a major fibre cable outage which lasted 12 days in January. The Tonga-Fiji cable, measuring some […]
FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly has again been expressing his enthusiasm over the adoption of key satellite frequencies in order to help the roll-out of 5G services over the US. Speaking at the ‘Wireless Connect 2019” event in Washington, O’Rielly was supportive of the reallocation of C-band frequencies. “While placing 3.5 GHz [C-band] into the hands […]
SpaceX’s giant ‘Falcon Heavy’ mega-rocket launch, initially scheduled for April 7th will not now happen until April 9th. The launch is already being described as one of the most important in the life of SpaceX, as it is the first commercial cargo being carried on the massive 27-engined rocket. The rocket made its debut flight more […]
Amazon has reportedly filed a request with the ITU to launch and place into Low Earth orbit (LEO) a mega-constellation of 3236 satellites. In doing so Amazon will be competing with the already established fleet of 20 SES/O3b satellites, plus other planned services from SpaceX, OneWeb, Telesat, Leosat and others. Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos is […]
Intelsat’s CEO Stephen Spengler and SES boss Steve Collar, along with senior officials from the C-Band Alliance (CBA), met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Aaron Goldberger, legal advisor to Chairman Pai on March 29th. The CBA explained to Chairman Pai that the CBA is engaged in working collaboratively with industry stakeholders on the technical, […]
In a surprise change of heart, Eutelsat says it will back an initial constellation of a small number of low-orbiting Internet of Things (IoT) satellites in an initial fleet. Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer, addressing a Paris conference, said his company will extend the single ‘test’ satellite already being built and expected to launch later in […]
Investment banker JP Morgan has issued a favourable report on Intelsat and, in particular, its potential prospects should the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approving the C-Band Alliance’s plans for reallocation of some key frequencies and bandwidth over the US. The bank sees the potential for “substantial” proceeds from spectrum sales by the company and its […]
Data from a study carried out by Northern Sky Research (NSR) forecasts that the cumulative value of airline and passenger activity in the ‘In Flight Communications’ and entertainment field will have be worth a massive $36 billion by 2028. Last year was not the best benchmark for growth as the industry suffered equipment and deployment […]