UK subscription-free satellite TV service Freesat has revealed that it has sold its 3 millionth product, taking gross retail sales to well over £1 billion, four years after the service first launched in 2008. It also confirmed that YouTube will soon be available on the platform, claimed as a first for free British TV. Freesat […]
Controversial Iran-backed news channel Press TV has been removed from Intelsat’s Galaxy-19 satellite (97 degrees West), meaning that cable headends in the US and Canada can no longer pick up the channel. The channel has, one way or another, been banned over Europe and taken off the air by satellite operators as varied as Eutelsat, […]
HellasSat, part of Greece’s OTE telecoms company, is being bought by Saudi Arabia-based Arabsat. The Arab satellite company is paying $157 million for HellasSat plus a payment of $53.4 million for the cash reserves held by HellasSat. The total of $208 million will give Arabsat 99.05 per cent of the Greek business. The remaining 0.95 […]
Eutelsat is beginning to make progress with its giant Ka-Sat broadband satellites. It says it now has 72,000 ‘active’ Tooway terminals as at December 31st, up from 52,450 in June last year. Eutelsat modified and simplified its pricing structure for Tooway last month. The increased subscriber levels on broadband means that iEutelsat’s Value-Added Services division […]
Eutelsat Communications and Arianespace have announced the signature of a long-term multiple launch services agreement which guarantees launch capacity and flexibility to Eutelsat for its industry-leading expansion programme. The agreement covers up to four launches in the 2016 and 2017 timeframe, with the assignment of each satellite to a launch vehicle to be made at […]
The February 1st launch failure of a giant Intelsat satellite is likely to cost the insurance industry up to $400 million, according to sources. The loss will be made up by the high value of the satellite, but the extra sums are likely to be cost of the failed launch, plus the craft’s actual insurance […]
Industry focus on satellite broadband Internet access services has progressively shifted over the last few years. North America, Western Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa have all at one time or another been classified as the “next big thing” for satellite broadband and high throughput satellites (HTS). And now, the industry […]
Eutelsat Communications has confirmed that Ross McInnes has been co-opted to the Board as an independent director. He replaces Olivier Rozenfeld who has resigned his seat after almost three years as an independent director. McInnes will also assume the chairmanship of the Audit Committee that was previously chaired by Olivier Rozenfeld. McInnes, an Australian and […]
Arianespace is preparing to launch two satellites on February 7th: Amazonas-3 for Spain’s Hispasat, and AzerSat/Africasat-1a for a consortium that’s headed by Azerbaijan interests. Lift-off is scheduled during the rocket’s launch window which opens at 18.36pm Kourou-time (22.36 Paris-time). Amazonas-3 is a powerful craft designed to replace Amazonas-1 and expand the number of transponders at […]
India’s DTH market continues to impress observers with its subscriber gains. The latest operator to unveil its numbers is telco giant Bharti, where its Airtel DTH division saw net subscriber numbers rise 439,000 during the most recent quarter-year (to December 31st), which is well ahead of last year’s 55,000. All its other key metrics were […]