Advanced Television

Spectrum

Eutelsat explains C-Band strategy

There have been many formal filings to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by Eutelsat, explaining their strategy as far as the proposed reallocation of C-band is over the US. Inside Satellite spoke to a senior Eutelsat spokesperson on the background to their thinking, and in particular to their controversial proposals to offer up a 50 […]

November 18, 2019

CBA a mess, but good news in sight?

It is unlikely that the world’s two major satellite operators, Intelsat and SES, have ever experienced such dramatic collective meltdowns in their share prices. Of course, there have been profit warnings from time to time, but nothing to compare with this week’s catastrophic collapse in their company theoretical values. As this is written, SES has […]

November 15, 2019

CBA: Stock losses put into perspective

It hasn’t been a prosperous time for the C-Band Alliance of Intelsat, SES and Telesat. Both Intelsat and SES suffered significant mark-downs in the share prices on the back of negative comments from investment bank JPMorgan with its comments (which was reported on November 13th). In essence, the bank says that there are serious concerns […]

November 14, 2019By Chris Forrester

GIGAEurope to champion European connectivity

Europe’s leading independent private telecoms companies have formed a new industry association – GIGAEurope. Built on the foundations of Cable Europe, the association will promote the industry’s interests, and in the longer term become an umbrella organisation for a broad section of the connectivity industry. GIGAEurope’s founding members include most of the current Cable Europe […]

November 13, 2019

Intelsat hurt by C-Band confusion

Intelsat’s share price fell back 12.34 per cent on November 12th, badly hurt by a negative report from investment bank JPMorgan and amid concerns that there are now significant “complications” in how the proposed C-Band Alliance might fare in the long-awaited FCC decision on reassignment of key satellite frequencies. JPMorgan specifically downgraded Intelsat from ‘Overweight’ […]

November 13, 2019By Chris Forrester

CBA gets tough with US lawmakers

The C-Band Alliance on November 7th sent a strongly-worded seven-page letter to two senior members of the US House Sub-committee on Communications & Technology. The letter starts politely enough, telling Chairman Michael Doyle and Ranking Member Robert Latta that it wanted to correct some misstatements. But the message soon became blunt saying, in effect, ‘hands […]

November 8, 2019By Chris Forrester

AT&T pitches C-Band auction scheme

US telco giant AT&T has proposed its own plan for a private C-band auction to reallocate satellite spectrum over the US. AT&T is almost certain to be a buyer of some of the released satellite spectrum. The AT&T ‘variation’ on the C-Band Alliance’s well-rehearsed scheme, suggests that the spectrum should be released extremely promptly and […]

November 7, 2019By Chris Forrester

How will Ergen react to Sprint/T-Mobile merger?

The FCC has approved certain modifications as part of its formal approval of the proposed $26.5 billion merger between telcos Sprint and T-Mobile. The FCC had last month agreed the outline terms in a 3-2 vote from Commissioners. The FCC approval means that Dish/Echostar founder Charlie Ergen could now proceed and become a fourth wireless […]

November 7, 2019

C-Band wait will soon be over

Giles Thorne, media analyst at investment bank Jefferies, speaking about the eventual C-Band decision for the reallocation of spectrum over the US for 5G usage, sums up the position perfectly, saying ‘The C-Band Home Strait’ in his comprehensive report on the current state of play. He admits that the past year or so has been […]

November 5, 2019

ICASA publishes re-use plan for analogue TV bands

South Africa’s telecoms regulator ICASA has published details of various options open to government for the adoption of 4G and 5G technologies. Part of the plan covers the redistribution of 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands, currently used by analogue TV, as well as the licensing of the 3.5 GHz band specifically for 5G usage. […]

November 4, 2019By Chris Forrester