[Satellite TODAY 05-13-10] Solaris Mobile has been granted 18-year licenses by the European Commission to operate mobile satellite services in France, Sweden and Germany, the company announced May 12.
    Solaris Mobile now holds hybrid network licenses to operate mobile voice, video, data and other broadband services in seven European countries, including Finland, Luxembourg, Italy, and Slovenia. 
    Solaris Mobile, a joint venture between SES Astra and Eutelsat Communications, is targeting the mobile services market in Europe but suffered a setback due to an anomaly on its W2A satellite’s S-band payload, launched in April 2009.
    In a February interview with Satellite News, Solaris Mobile CEO Steve Maine said, “We now have a satellite payload that does not work properly. We are fortunate that we had residual capacity on the satellite. We can, however, use it for pre-commercial and commercial services. It is making the best of what we have. We need to move on quickly to the next satellite, and this is a key requirement for us, to move the company into a fully commercial phase.”

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