Satellite operator SES has wrapped the performance tests for its SES-17 craft at the Thales Alenia Space facility in Cannes. It is now being prepared for its September 22nd flight to the Arianespace launch site in French Guiana. Launch date is currently set as October 22nd although weather and last-minute technology problems might delay the […]
A major suite of creditors of Intelsat (the Ad-Hoc/Convert Group) and which hold Intelsat’s 4.5 per cent convertible notes due 2025, are reserving their rights in Intelsat’s bankruptcy case. In a filing to the court on September 3rd, the group of creditors say that Intelsat have “repeatedly touted their goal to try to build further […]
In another day of significant motions filed into Intelsat’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reconstruction proceedings, one 44-page document explained Intelsat’s current position regarding objections filed by other litigants. Another, consisting of 325 pages, adds further details while a 170 page document covers the formalities of Intelsat’s potential exist plan. SES has a similar suite of filings. […]
It has long been a complaint from SES that Intelsat, in its complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is using associate and sister businesses to shift incoming cash (and in particular the so-called incentive payments from the FCC over the C-band reallocation of spectrum). SES describes the Intelsat action as playing a “shell game” and that Intelsat […]
Subscribers to SES’s German HD media platform will soon be able to access channels on their mobile devices with the launch of a new streaming app, HD+ ToGo. As an extension of SES’s satellite television HD+ service, the new mobile service will give users full streaming access to over 50 HD channels in the palm […]
On September 1st the Intelsat bankruptcy court is scheduled to hold a pre-trial hearing on the SES claim for a greater share of the FCC’s incentive payments due from the C-band clearing process and auction. SES, in a filing to the court on August 25th, is asking that the actual trial scheduled for September 20th […]
There are many pages of potential problems to be overcome by Intelsat as it proceeds towards its proposed Exit Plan from bankruptcy under its Amended Plan. But two Luxembourg entities figure largely in the 607-page filing to its US bankruptcy court on August 24th. The first is Intelsat arch-rival SES, very much based in Luxembourg, […]
SES CEO Steve Collar, SES’s CEO in an interview on the topic of satellite industry merger activity, admitted that he was sure that “everyone’s talking to everyone”. Collar added, in the interview carried by Bloomberg, that because Space is “essentially a fixed-cost industry, so the scale that’s generated from consolidation can be important financially. And […]
Israel-based Gilat Satellite Networks has received a “multi-million dollar” contract from SES for multiple broadband applications in Latin America. Gilat says its multi-service platform will support SES in cellular telco backhauling, enterprise and Universal Service Obligation (USO) projects, as SES extends services into Latin America with the deployment on new regional hubs. “SES has been […]
The August 19th application by Intelsat and SES to have much of their court arguments heard privately was granted by Intelsat’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy Judge. Despite a strong case submitted by the US Trustee, who argued that the two litigants were seeking to close the courthouse door during their submissions and that the public had […]