Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.
AST & Science is planning a mega-constellation of satellites, called SpaceMobile, to provide 2G/3G/4G/5G connectivity anywhere on the planet, including aircraft broadband connectivity. Texas-based AST & Science (AST) has won investments from the likes of Vodafone and Japanese e-retailer Rakuten and bringing the amount raised to $128 million. Its first test-satellite will reportedly launch later […]
The satellite industry’s big 5 operators (Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, Telesat and Viasat) have all now reported their quarterly numbers and – in summary – they are not good. Sami Kassab, an analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP, in a useful summary note to clients says that overall, operating trends for the industry remain challenging with Intelsat […]
The rumours that some sort of consolidation could take place between SES and Eutelsat refuse to die. At the November 5th results conference, analyst Patrick Wellington from Morgan Stanley almost seemed to appeal to SES CEO Steve Collar to come clean and explain the position. Collar politely declined the invitation to deliver any information – […]
OneWeb, which should be emerging from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early December, has shipped a batch of satellites to the Russian launch site at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, in Russia’s Far East. Vostochny, which means ‘Eastern’ in Russian, is Russia’s second spaceport and designed to take the launch pressure from its main rocket site at […]
The European Space Agency (ESA) is asking its 13 member nations to stump up an extra €230 million ($268m) to aid the development of Arianespace’s next generation Ariane 6 rocket as well as its Vega-6 rocket. The bill could rise. To date the Ariane 6 R&D programme has already cost a budgeted €2.83 billion and […]
Later in 2021 Eutelsat will launch a large satellite, its Eutelsat VHTS (for Very High Throughput) Konnect craft. It will use this craft, with its 230 spot-beams and overall capacity of some 500 Gb/s throughput, to provide two-way broadband connectivity across Europe and much further afield. Eutelsat is already marketing a preliminary ‘Konnect’ service over […]
With SES taking a larger slice of Canal+ capacity requirements, it is inevitable that there had to be a loser. That satellite operator is the Intelsat/Telenor position at 1-degree West. Canal+ owned-M7 group will consolidate its Eastern European coverage on SES at 23.5 degrees East cutting out Intelsat/Telenor at 1 West. SES is thus gaining […]
UK-based mega-constellation satellite operator OneWeb has received various US government approvals for it to exit its Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The approvals include the FCC which sanctioned the purchase by the UK government and Bharti Global this week. The FCC’s decision came in the form of an ‘Order’ on October 26th which gave permission for OneWeb […]
Jeff Bezos has already bought the Washington Post newspaper, but amidst rumours that AT&T is looking to dispose of less important assets, it is reported that Bezos might use some of his Amazon billions to buy news broadcaster CNN. The core report came from Sr. Correspondent for FOX Business Network Charles Gasparino who suggests that […]
A report from Quilty Analytics makes difficult reading for those expecting low-cost (sub-$500) antennas which are vital if the likes of Elon Musk are to make in-roads into the mass consumer market. Quilty’s conclusions are blunt: “The original vision of a low-cost, high-performing electronically steered antenna for commercial markets and consumer applications has not yet […]
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