Advanced Television

Satellite

OneWeb’s first batch of satellites ready to go

OneWeb’s first major cluster of 34 satellites have been integrated on top of the Soyuz ST-B/Fregat-M rocket at Baikonur in Kazakhstan, and ready for launch on February 7th, weather permitting. OneWeb place 6 test satellites into orbit on February 27th 2019 (although they were launched from Kourou by Arianespace in French Guiana). This upcoming launch […]

January 29, 2020By Chris Forrester

Amazon’s Project Kuiper planning laser links?

Jeff Bezos’ mega-constellation Project Kuiper is advertising (at ‘Amazon Jobs’) for a “Senior Opto-Mechanical Engineer”. This is just one position amongst many which suggests that Project Kuiper is dramatically ramping up its hiring, and with a specification that calls for laser linking between satellites. This position needs a talent to fulfil a task specified as: […]

January 29, 2020

Bank provides CBA/Washington update

Sami Kassab, a media analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP last week held a variety of meetings in Washington DC in connection with the C-Band Alliance’s plan for the auction of satellite spectrum over the US for re-use by the 5G industry. Kassab met with a couple of opponents to the scheme as well as key […]

January 28, 2020

OneWeb strikes agreement with Kazakhstan hub

Mega-constellation operator OneWeb has signed an MoU with Astana International, the largest financial hub in Central Asia, in order to accelerate the take up of broadband in Kazakhstan and the surrounding region. “The MoU marks the start of a partnership focused on achieving two important goals in Kazakhstan and Central Asia: providing the first low-latency […]

January 28, 2020By Chris Forrester

SpaceX launch delayed until Jan 29

Bad, high-level weather over Florida caused a delay to the SpaceX launch of 60 ‘Starlink’ satellites on January 27th and again on the 28th. Subject to local weather conditions the launch is now scheduled for 09.06 am Florida time (14.06 pm GMT) on January 29th. The launch will be televised on SpaceX’s video website. This […]

January 28, 2020By Chris Forrester

Eutelsat makes shock suggestion to FCC

Eutelsat, no longer a member of the C-Band Alliance (CBA), has told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that it should only pay out a maximum of $7 billion in payout to the satellite operators (including Eutelsat) in a planned auction of US spectrum for re-use for 5G. Bloomberg Intelligence, in a report late on January […]

January 27, 2020

CBA emphasises costs of satellite transition for FCC

The C-Band Alliance (CBA), in a batch of filings to the FCC, has broken down the costs of clearing transmissions as part of its workload for the final reallocations of bandwidth for 5G over the US. It reminds the FCC that clearing spectrum for the 35,000 cable and IPTV operators across the US is a […]

January 27, 2020By Chris Forrester

SpaceX to launch next batch of Starlink satellites?

There’s been some bad weather off the Florida coast for a few days and causing delays for SpaceX. The revised launch of 60 of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites is due today (January 27th), unless the weather again creates a problem. This fourth batch of 60 will take SpaceX’s overall total of deployed Starlink craft to 240, […]

January 27, 2020By Chris Forrester

Eurona renegotiates Hispasat and Avanti contracts

Spanish telecoms multinational Eurona has renegotiated its existing capacity contracts with Hispasat and Avanti and in the process will save €9 million annually. Eurone says it is operational in more than 20 countries and has over 40,000 clients. The company specialises in offering satellite broadband services in small rural towns and municipalities with fewer than […]

January 24, 2020By Chris Forrester

Skylo one to watch for satellite IoT

Skylo has just raised a total of $103 million (€92.9m) in Series B funding for its proposed Internet of Things satellite-based service. Skylo had been in ‘stealth’ mode and according to Skylo, the company will bring instant, affordable and ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity to millions of machines, sensors and devices, even in the […]

January 23, 2020