March 13th was a good day for satellite operators in that the French government announced a series of measures designed to supply and improve broadband connectivity into French rural areas. Investment bank Exane BNP-Paribas, in a note to clients on March 16th, said this was good news for satellite operators Eutelsat and SES. “We believe […]
A new would-be satellite operator, LeoSat, has talked about placing 120-140 Ka-band satellites into orbit at heights of 1800 kms, but deliberately not seeking business from the billions of under-connected users around the planet. Instead, says Vern Fotheringham, CEO at LeoSat LLC, he wants to target “the top 3000 businesses, rather than the other 3 […]
Satellite has a key role to play in the architecture of future networks and the acceleration of digitisation, according to Karim Michel Sabbagh, President and CEO of SES. Sabbagh’s comments came as he delivered a keynote address at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Satellite is a key actor for digitisation and an integral […]
A Nokia Networks report on mobile broadband performance in India reveals a 74 per cent increase in mobile data traffic generated by both 2G and 3G mobile broadband services at the end of 2014, compared to the beginning the same year. This rise was primarily driven by a strong 3G growth with 114 per cent […]
Satellite operator SES is buying three satellites in a series of orders that will cost around $1 billion in total to build and launch. One new craft, the hybrid SES-14, will replace and expand the role undertaken by NSS-806 at 47.5/48 degrees West, and add capacity to the location including backing up and providing extra […]
SES has announced that its Astra Connect for Communities solution will be used in a UK Government-funded Market Test Pilot (MTP) project. These Pilot projects aim to assess which technologies and commercial models are best suited to deliver superfast broadband to the final five percent of households in the UK that currently do not have […]
London-based satellite broadband supplier Avanti Communications reported its first-half numbers and declared widening losses ($48.1 million vs $41.8m in the same period a year ago). However, revenues were markedly up (24 per cent) from $25 million to $31.1 million. Avanti also reported that they had raised an extra £60.6 million ($90.7m) in new capital via […]
O3b, the satellite-by-broadband constellation that aims to reach ‘the other 3 billion’ people who have little or no access to Internet services, has added some important Pacific clients. It is now saying that O3b is the largest provider of satellite capacity over the Pacific region. Norfolk Telecom, situated halfway between Australia and New Zealand, and […]
SES’s Astra 2G satellite has been successfully launched on an ILS Proton Breeze M booster at 03:37:49 Baikonur time (22:37:49 CET and 16:37:49 EST on December 27th). After a nine-hour, 12-minute mission, the Breeze M upper stage of the Proton rocket successfully released the Astra 2G satellite into geostationary transfer orbit. Astra 2G will be […]
California-based satellite broadband operator ViaSat says it intends to offer an unlimited bandwidth service to subscribers once its upcoming ViaSat-2 is in orbit. Launch of ViaSat-2 is due in mid-2016. VCEO Mark Dankberg said his intention is to challenge cable and DSL service providers which are often unable to manage demand from users for higher […]