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.
This past weekend’s ILS/Proton rocket launch problems have placed Satmex, the next planned launch client, into an extremely dangerous position. Russia’s Proton Briz-M upper stage failed to reach its intended orbit, and placed its satellite into a lower orbit than intended. All planned further launches will now be subject to further delays. This will severely […]
Eutelsat’s massive 70B craft was successfully orbited from the floating Sea Launch platform overnight on December 3-4. The launch took place at 20.44 GMT on the 3rd. The huge 5.2 tonne satellite is to be placed at 70.5 degrees East. Eutelsat, in a statement, said the craft’s solar panels had been partly deployed some two […]
One might say “at last”. On November 8th French media regulator le Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) licensed Onde Numérique to broadcast by satellite over Europe. Transmissions will be made on the Eutelsat/SES Solaris Mobile payload that’s been in orbit on Eutelsat’s W2A craft since April 2009. The CSA announced a beauty contest competition for […]
Billionaire Elon Musk, who co-founded PayPal, is creating a rival to the world’s established rocket-launch systems, France’s Arianespace and Russia’s Proton. His business is SpaceX and its Falcon rockets are proving to be a very real challenge to the status-quo. Musk has told the BBC that the Ariane 5 rocket system has “no chance” in […]
Iran, for some time a pariah nation, is finally suffering the reality of increasingly tough sanctions. In the past few weeks Eutelsat and Intelsat have taken down Iran’s state-backed channels, including those belonging to Press TV, its English-language propaganda station. Now Hong Kong-based AsiaSat has removed all Iranian TV and radio channels “in line with […]
EU’s foreign policy minister on has denounced Iran’s “deliberate jamming” of TV and radio satellite broadcasts that deprive its citizens of access to free information, and called on Tehran to obey global telecommunications laws. “Since 2009, repeated waves of jamming have affected the signals of European satellites in the Middle East,” the EU’s Catherine Ashton […]
France’s telecommunications agency is formally asking the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to take action on persistent satellite jamming by Iran. France’s National Agency of Frequency Regulation (ANFR) says it is “extremely concerned” about Iranian jamming, and reports suggest that discussions between France and other national bodies are discussing sanctions against Iran. In other news Iran […]
Eutelsat and Intelsat have already taken down Iranian TV transmissions coming from IRIB and Press TV. On November 8th the US government applied sanctions on certain named individuals connected to Iran’s broadcasting efforts, as well as criticising Iran’s deliberate jamming of its neighbour’s satellite transmissions and local Internet censorship policies. The US State Department has […]
Iran’s IRIB state-backed TV channels have been dropped by the Eutelsat and Intelsat organisations. The decision also affected the controversial Press TV signals. Press TV has been proscribed by German and British media regulators. Now, according to communiqués from the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) the channels are being reinstated for satellite viewers from satellites […]
Eutelsat has increased its level of cooperation with a major state-backed Russian satellite operator. Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC) has signed a fresh agreement with Eutelsat which sees Eutelsat leasing capacity on two RSCC craft which will launch next year and in 2015. The leases are for the 15-year lifetime of the satellites, and have […]
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