EchoStar chairman Charlie Ergen seemed to bear no ill-will towards his takeover target Inmarsat in his comments made during the company’s Q2 results presentation. However, he told analysts that “scale matters” and that just about every satellite operator was “sub-scale” and explained that almost all the satellite players were suffering video markets which have been […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX managed a textbook launch of Telkom Indonesia’s Merah Putih (Red & White) satellite in the early hours (01.18 am EDT) of August 7th from Cape Canaveral. The launch was the 15th this year for SpaceX. The launch used – or re-used – a Falcon 9 Block 5 ‘flight tested’ rocket which had […]
A major 37-page report from equity analysts at investment bank Jefferies says the proposed restructuring of scarce satellite C-band frequencies over the US in order to help drive adoption of 5G cellular telephony, could result in a $10 billion cash windfall “at least” for the two main proponents of the scheme, SES and Intelsat. The […]
Inflight Wi-Fi is a key driver in forming customer loyalty and satisfaction among today’s airline passengers, according to Inmarsat’s fourth annual global Inflight Connectivity Survey, the industry’s largest poll of passenger attitudes published in association with market research company Populus. Wi-Fi is already an essential part of everyday life on the ground with more than […]
Ottawa-based Telesat says it will participate in any upcoming C-Band reorganisation of capacity over the USA. CEO Dan Goldberg told analysts: “We’ll participate in the proceeding. We’re not at this point in time aligned with SES and Intelsat and Eutelsat on their position there. We’re sympathetic to the direction that the FCC is heading. We […]
Rodolph Belmer, CEO at Eutelsat, in an interview with French financial daily Les Echos, says that he does not see the threat from OTT players putting significant pressures on its customer base. He adds that for every hour of OTT viewing, TV consumption only declines by 10 minutes. Moreover, while broadcasters will inevitably attempt to […]
Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce told analysts August 2nd that the recent EchoStar bid for Inmarsat was so unacceptable that any dialogue or engagement would have been seen as weakness. Pearce said that the EchoStar experience would not alter Inmarsat’s strategy, which would not change given that the company has a strong core business. “They had […]
Intelsat says that its delayed launch of the I-38/Azerspace-2 so-called ‘condominium’ satellite, will now take place in September on an Arianespace rocket. The launch had been delayed since May 2018 because India removed its GSAT-11 as a co-passenger on the Intelsat launch, for re-inspection. Intelsat has decided to launch another of its condo-sat craft, a […]
Eutelsat’s CEO Rodolph Belmer told analysts on August 1st that he was staying the view to be “more prudent than most of estimates made at the moment” of the potential revenue gains from the reassignment of C-band spectrum over the US. Eutelsat has only around 5 per cent of the C-band market over the US […]
Despite falls in overall revenues (down 1.9 per cent like-for-like) Eutelsat’s CEO Rodolphe Belmer says that the satellite operator is on the mend. “I would highlight the progressive improvement throughout the year for the five operating verticals. Moreover, in terms of financial discipline, we are ahead of plan on the LEAP cost savings programme. Elsewhere, […]