Space tourism business Virgin Galactic says around 800 would-be “astronauts” have made reservations for one of its sub-orbital flights. That might be the best news for the Sir Richard Branson-backed company which declared a delay to its passenger flights (to Q1/2023) and a net loss of $93 million for Q1 this year ($130 million loss […]

Veon is a Netherlands-based multinational telecoms service company. Officially domiciled in Bermuda, it was founded in 2009 and perhaps better known as VimpelCom. Its subsidiary companies include Beeline, Kyvistar, Jazz, Wind Telecom and Banglalink. It is listed on the Nasdaq and Euronext exchanges – but the conflict between Russia and Ukraine risks bringing the whole […]

British millionaire Sir Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of ad-agency S4 Capital and the former head of WPP, says that broadband satellite venture Starlink is the real “ace up Elon Musk’s sleeve” – not Twitter or Tesla. “The real jewel in Musk’s crown is Starlink. It takes data directly from Tesla’s cars which in reality are […]

Ligado Networks, formerly known as LightSquared and SkyTerra Communications, is a satellite communications business and operates the SkyTerra-1 satellite. Inmarsat is very much involved insofar that it is owed cash by Ligado for satellite capacity leases. Ligado has had a very chequered history, but now faces a series of heavyweight objections to its plans from […]

A report from investment bank Berenberg on NENT Group and its Viaplay service maintains its ‘BUY’ advice to investors. The bank, however, says there were slight shortfalls from NENT’s Advertising and Other Subscription segments in its last set of results, which meant that group net sales of SEK2.34 billion (€0.23bn) fell 2.3 per cent short […]

Iridium Communications operates 66 active satellites and connects its customers with global voice and data from its hand-held satellite phones and terminals. It has moved from a quarterly loss to its fourth straight quarter of double digit growth and a profit and reported an extremely buoyant forward guidance with subscribers growing to 1.78 million (from […]

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which grants and regulates spectrum and frequency usage for satellite operators, has cautioned US-based Viasat that the clock is running on its plan to use Israeli frequencies for one of its planned satellites. The ITU had approved Viasat’s use of the 13.8 degrees East orbital slot, and its Ka-band frequencies, […]

Eutelsat has been upgraded from analysts at Zachs Investment Research with a ‘Buy’ rating from ‘Hold’. Zachs gives a price target for Eutelsat of $12 (about €11.10) for the company’s shares (currently trading at about €10.26). The Zachs report, issued April 20th, updates investors on other views and ratings from the likes of Barclays (which […]

No regular reader will doubt that I’ve never exactly over-indulged on the Netflix Cool-Aid, so the latest news isn’t a big surprise. Price rises in a cost-of-living crisis and plateaued content offerings (both quality and quantity), matched with inflation in production, were never going to be a good mix. Add in vociferous competition and the […]

Judge Keith Phillips opened his hearing into ‘Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law’ in the SES vs Intelsat case on April 19th. Some 84 lawyers and other interested parties were present on a Zoom call, including Stephen Spengler – Intelsat’s CEO during the bankruptcy period . A 158-page background to Intelsat’s defence was entered […]