Advanced Television

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AT&T: Must all telco TV end in tears?

This blog replaces one about BT trying to sell its expensively fashioned TV assets. AT&T is also bailing from TV, and its entanglement with entertainment makes BT’s foray look cheap and well-managed. While AT&T keeps a big stake, the maths isn’t appetising from their stockholder’s point of view. The new company has a proforma enterprise […]

May 17, 2021

Telesat wants speedy C-band decision

Ottawa-based Telesat is sitting on some valuable C-band spectrum, and completely favours selling off some of that spectrum itself. The sale of 200 MHz of capacity would generate cash to help pay for its fleet of Low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites, called Lightspeed. Telesat’s CEO Dan Goldberg told analysts that it would like to handle […]

May 17, 2021

Intelsat Chapter 11: Trial and Exit Plan

Reporting on Intelsat’s Chapter 11 reconstruction is not helped by the slew of daily Motions and Filings made to the company’s bankruptcy court, nor by the conflicting arguments lodged by the varied interested parties. Yours truly is assisted in this revision by a source close to the action. There are two important strands: The first […]

May 14, 2021

SMPTE: “Trim the UHD codecs”

A paper by a trio of video experts says that video production equipment using different codecs and settings to balance competing requirements, such as trading off between bitrate and quality, and make video production life far too complicated. The introduction of UHD-TV and high dynamic range (HDR) adds to the number of codec implementations, making […]

May 13, 2021

SES and Intelsat appoint mediator

Intelsat’s bankruptcy court ordered that a mediator be appointed to try and find more common ground between the disputing pair. That has now happened. SES and Intelsat informed the court on May 11th that the two litigants met on April 29th and agreed both the appointment and scope of the referees authority. The two parties […]

May 12, 2021

Bank: No surprises expected in Eutelsat Q3

Eutelsat will report Q3 results after the market closes on May 11th. Analysts are not expecting too many surprises and most of Eutelsat’s key revenue divisions will be in negative territory other than Fixed Broadband. Investment bank Exane/BNPP, in a note to clients, says they expect group revenues from Eutelsat’s operating verticals to decline by […]

May 10, 2021

Virgin Orbit to lose space race with Bezos

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin/New Shephard rocket is scheduled to carry its first space tourist passengers on July 20th. The move means that Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will now be a very definite second place in the race to tap into space tourism. A note to clients from investment bank UBS says that Virgin Galactic […]

May 10, 2021

SES share buy-back boosts shares

The first-quarter results from satellite operator SES were buoyant, and helped by a commitment to buy in €100 millions-worth of its own shares for cancellation helped boost SES’s share price by almost 10 percent. At the end of the day the shares were up 9.3 per cent to – a still miserable in some eyes […]

May 7, 2021

Buy a seat on a Blue Origin rocket flight

Jeff Bezos is offering a seat on the debut passenger launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. Those interested can bid for the solitary place. The flight is scheduled for July 20th and will be a globally publicised event, such is its importance. Blue Origin said: “We are offering one seat on this first flight […]

May 6, 2021

Eutelsat CEO: “OneWeb move makes sense”

Eutelsat’s CEO Rodolphe Belmer has explained in some detail why it made its move on OneWeb. Last week it announced it would place $550 million into OneWeb in return for a 24 per cent shareholding. The 24 per cent stake puts Eutelsat at an equal level as the two existing investors. Eutelsat will have 3 […]

May 4, 2021