Rivada Networks wants to build and launch 600 satellites in a mega-constellation. However, the business is on a tight timetable as far as its launch schedule is concerned and badly needs the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to relax its rules. The first batch of satellites, numbering 300, are already on order. Rivada had hoped that […]
Indonesia’s important 150 Gb/s broadband satellite, Satria-1, is already late in being delivered from its manufacturers with delays caused by component shortages from Covid-related problems. The craft was due for launch in March 2022, then March 2023 which will be missed. Now, Indonesia is asking the ITU in Geneva to permit a delay of its […]
Mangata Networks has raised $100 million (€95.4m) from (mostly) Scottish investors to fund the development of a satellite manufacturing plant at Prestwick, Scotland. Mangata, headed up by Brian Holz, says its new facility will combine R&D, engineering, manufacturing and operations at the Scottish site. In January it raised $33 million from a group of investors […]
Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russia has succeeded in gaining regulatory approval for a global broadband-by-satellite constellation. The project – called Sphere – already has one satellite in orbit, a ”demonstration” SkyF-D craft, launched on October 22nd. Russian Space Agency Roscosmos is backing the scheme, and the Russian government has plans to invest some […]
The ITU’s powerful Radio Regulations Board (RRB) has refused Sweden’s Ovzon AB request to extend the timetable for the satellite operator’s ‘bringing into use’ (BIU) obligations for its Ovzon-3 satellite. Ovzon-3 was licensed by Cyprus and, like many other satellite operators, has suffered delays in manufacturing caused by the pandemic, and had asked the ITU’s […]
As the carbon footprint of the video entertainment industry has ballooned to exceed even that of the airline industry, a question has been what will it take to make sustainability a key element of video content creation? A new whitepaper released by InterDigital, and written by Futuresource Consulting, explores the reasons why the video entertainment […]
ViaSat-3, the first of a trio of massive broadband satellites for the California-based operator, has slipped its expected launch date. SpaceX, which is launching the craft on one of its Falcon Heavy rockets, now says that the launch cannot happen before December 27th. The Kennedy Space Centre has published its anticipated launch schedule for December […]
Member States of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have elected Doreen Bogdan-Martin of the United States of America as the organisation’s next Secretary-General. Bogdan-Martin will be the first woman to lead ITU, which was established in 1865 and became a United Nations specialised agency in 1947. The election took place during ITU’s Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22) […]
An estimated 2.7 billion people – or one-third of the world’s population – remain unconnected to the Internet in 2022. Data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies, point to slower growth in the number of Internet users than at the height of the pandemic. An […]
Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat is up against some tough ITU ‘bringing into use’ (BIU) deadlines for its proposed Lightspeed super-constellation of 188 satellites. The ITU is careful with its BIU requirements; its rules are designed to eliminate the filing of so-called ‘paper projects’ where the filer would be granted frequency or orbital permissions for a […]