UK subscription-free satellite TV service Freesat has announced strong quarterly results with the addition of 24,000 new homes in the three months to the end of December 2014. After adding 56,000 homes over the course of the year, Freesat is now available in over 1.9 million households and is watched by more than four million […]
Inmarsat’s latest satellite, and the second of its new giant Global Xpress craft, was successfully launched on Sunday at 12.31pm (GMT) aboard a Russian Proton rocket. The craft’s correct name is Inmarsat-5 F2, and it will go to its final geostationary orbit over the next 7-8 weeks where it will be tested. It should come […]
Reaching the latest milestone, Britain’s Sky News has successfully broadcast the first live, on-air transmission via Inmarsat’s new Ka-band satellite network, Global Xpress (GX). Partnering with Network Innovations (NI) and Inmarsat, Sky News was able to live stream HD video over the GX satellite (Inmarsat-5 F1) broadband network from Athens for the 25th January Greek […]
India is frequently cited for its huge – and growing – DTH subscriber numbers of a combined 70.33 million. But a report from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) tells a different story. TRAI says that the total number of inactive subscribers grew by 5.99 per cent (q-o-q, and during the July-Sept 2014 period). […]
UK pay-TV operator Sky is set to add a range of mobile voice and data services to its customer offering for the first time following agreement of a new partnership with Telefónica UK which will see it become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). Under the terms of the multi-year deal, Telefónica UK will give […]
In an important statement that is good news for the likes of Intelsat and SES, the US government has given its strongest support for some time as to the use and role of commercial satellites in terms of military usage. A US government House Armed Services Committee meeting on January 28th heard the Pentagon’s top […]
The cellular telephone industry is looking enviously at C-band frequencies for terrestrial use. A major international conference in Nigeria heard from Eutelsat’s CEO Michael de Rosen argue passionately that terrestrial operators should leave C-band exclusively for satellite transmission. “Opening the C-band to mobile operators would not herald the expansion of its use for new services. […]
Iran’s police have been busy removing dishes and confiscating satellite receivers as the nation enforces its ban on viewers watching ‘foreign’ TV channels. The city of Shiraz lost more than 6,000 installations to teams of police from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, according to a local report. The dishes were taken to a local sports stadium and […]
Eutelsat Communications has signed a multi-year agreement with RPO RMTR, the public broadcaster of the Kyrgyz Republic, that will accelerate the country’s switch to a fully digital broadcasting environment. RPO RMTR is using the high-power service area of the Eutelsat 70B satellite to broadcast a free-to-air platform of national channels to DTT towers and direct […]
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has created a massive new state corporation, which in the process will mean the end of Roscosmos, RSC Energia, Krunichev State Research, and the old space agency. All the entities will be absorbed into a super-holding company, United Rocket & Space Corp. (URSC), and in a plan that will seek to […]