In an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper, Rajeev Suri, Inmarsat CEO, predicted that only a handful of satellite operators will succeed and survive over the next 7 to 10 years. He said that it takes billions to get satellites into space and the industry has already seen plenty of bankruptcies, noting: “The industry structure […]
Elon Musk’s Starlink is expected to launch 3-4 batches of its broadband satellites per month throughout 2023. Each batch will be of about 50 satellites, unless Musk achieves success with SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket when the number carried could approach 350-400 per launch. A forecast from ABI Research says that SpaceX’s existing 3,500+ satellites in […]
Intellian, a provider of multi-constellation, satellite user terminal and communications solutions, and OneWeb, the low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company, have announced the success of their joint over-the-air demonstration using Intellian’s flat panel technology. At Intellian’s Advanced Development Center (ADC) in Maryland, the demonstration showcased an integrated, small form-factor Electronically Scanned Array (ESA) user […]
Israel-based satellite operator Spacecom has wrapped its tests on behalf of Telesat of Canada on its Phase 1 low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellite. Telesat has yet to announce who will build its fleet of almost 200 LEO satellites, although most observers expect an order to be placed this winter. The tests, conducted from Spacecom’s Teleport […]
Vivacom, part of the United Group network, and OneWeb have announced the development of a dedicated Satellite Network Portal (SNP), or ground station, for OneWeb in Bulgaria. The facility will expand communications services and increase access for EU territories to OneWeb’s constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites. This will increase system resilience and improve broadband coverage […]
Ahead of the ministerial meeting due November 22nd-23rd, an agreement was reached between the EU Parliament, European Space Agency and EU member states to invest €2.4 billion ($2.48bn) in the proposed IRIS² low Earth orbiting broadband and sat-nav scheme. The IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) project will build and operate an […]
On November 17th the EU and European Commission issued their political approval for investment in a €6 billion proposal for a fleet of up to 170 low Earth orbiting satellites for broadband system (IRIS²) serving Europe and beyond. SES has issued a supportive statement even though it might have to contribute its portion of a […]
Cellular telco Rakuten Mobile has obtained preliminary experimental test station licences to conduct mobile communication tests and preliminary verification in Japan using AST SpaceMobile’s low earth orbit satellite, BlueWalker 3. AST SpaceMobile is building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard unmodified mobile phones. In the future, Rakuten Mobile aims […]
The EU has given the go-ahead for an independent European Low Earth Orbiting fleet of broadband and satellite navigation craft. The name for the project is IRIS2. An EU ministerial conference approved the spend of €6 billion Internet system in order to ensure Europe’s security by reducing its reliance on foreign – that is non-European […]
The deployment of satellite constellations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for low-latency and high throughput network applications and extending terrestrial network (TN) coverage have become significant drivers in the adoption of satellite services in the global telecommunications sector, notes technology intelligence firm ABI Research who forecasts that this adoption will culminate in $141 billion (€135.7bn) […]