SES and Thales have taken inflight connectivity to a new level, successfully demonstrating uninterrupted access to high-throughput broadband applications for the first time over a platform supporting multi-orbit interoperability, switching seamlessly between SES’s geostationary (GEO) and O3b medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite beams. The demo flight from Melbourne, Florida to the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua […]

The C-Band Alliance (CBA) used a letter to Senator John Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and to Christopher Coons, a ranking member of the same committee. The letter was ostensibly to correct some misstatements made by two influential organisations. One “misrepresentation” came from David Williams of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance who in […]

Swarm Technologies, which in December 2018 was condemned by the FCC for ‘illegally’ launching 4 mini-satellites without approval and fined $900,000 as punishment, is now legal. The FCC has now approved California-based Swarm’s plan to launch an initial 150 of its sandwich-sized mini satellites – and perhaps as many as 600 over time – in […]

Sami Kassab, a satellite analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP, issued useful summary of the October 17th US Senate hearing on matters concerning the Federal Communications Commission and in particular the FCC’s thinking on the C-Band Alliance’s (CBA) plan for C-band over the US. Evidently, Senator John Kennedy used robust language in pushing his view that […]

An influential US lobbying group, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) has completely reversed its previous objections to the C-Band Alliance’s proposed scheme to free up at least 200 MHz of satellite spectrum over the US. The ATR has informed the US Senate Subcomittee on Appropriations that it now supports a private auction run – and […]

30,000 satellites is not a typo Elon Musk, rocket man, Tesla man, Hyperloop man, and a highly enthusiastic backer of getting mankind onto Mars, now says that his original plan for his ‘Starlink’ broadband by satellite’ scheme for 12,000 satellites isn’t quite enough. He is asking the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for permission to launch […]

The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency (SDA) is seeking to win a budget of more than $11 billion (€10bn) in order to fund a mega-constellation of around 250 – but it could be 1200 – satellites for military usage. The reports, carried by Bloomberg and Space News, say the budget request is for funding for the […]

Investment bank Morgan Stanley says it expects the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to publish its Final Report and Order on the C-Band Alliance’s (CBA) proposals in November. The CBA wants to reassign 180 MHz of C-band satellite spectrum and auction off the bandwidth for use by the 5G industry. Importantly, the bank says the FCC […]

New satellites often slip with their launch dates a month or two and such delays are more usually because of the availability – or non-availability – of their rocket launch. However, Eutelsat’s latest satellite, its Eutelsat ‘Quantum’ craft is reportedly delayed significantly to later next year, and well over a year later than planned. Originally […]

More information has emerged of a recent meeting between Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer and the Chairman and two Commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and at which Belmer told Chairman Ajit Pai that Eutelsat was in favour of freeing up a slightly higher portion of C-band spectrum (around 25 per cent) and would consider […]