Focus: Telecom

Norwegian shipping company Grieg Star has chosen Marlink’s Sealink VSAT Premium for its entire general cargo open hatch fleet of 33 vessels. Operating on multiple routes worldwide, Grieg Star’s ships will benefit from high bandwidth global Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) services with unlimited L-band back up included in the fixed monthly fee. In order...

Intelsat and Lamhas announced a multi-year agreement for satellite services supporting media distribution in India via the Intelsat 20 satellite. Lamhas is using a C-band, multiple channels per carrier broadcast platform on Intelsat 20, located at 68.5 degrees east, to deliver broadcast services to new and emerging TV channels. Under the agreement, Lamhas increased its...

Bluesky Cook Islands, the sole provider of fixed phone, mobile and broadband services to the Cook Islands, has increased the amount of satellite capacity it is using from SES Networks in order to launch 4G+ service to Rarotonga and Aitutaki, the two key cities of the island nation. According to SES, the increased capacity delivered...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and its British counterpart Ofcom have granted Kymeta approvals to commercially distribute its electronically steered satellite antennas and terminals. According to Kymeta, the blanket license will allow it to operate 5,000 vehicle-mounted Earth stations (VMEs), 5,000 fixed IoT installations, and 1,000 maritime Earth stations on vessels (ESVs). Read more at...

The technology group Wartsila has successfully tested the remote control of ship operations. Wartsila carried out the testing, which involved driving the vessel through a sequence of maneuvers using a combination of Dynamic Positioning (DP) and manual joystick control, on Aug. 21 off the North Sea coast of Scotland in collaboration with Gulfmark Offshore, the...

Hurricane Harvey has dumped record-breaking amounts of rain over Texas this week, and the storm continues to hit other areas of the continental U.S. Then in South Asia, monsoon rains across India, Bangladesh, and Nepal have killed hundreds and displaced millions. In this article from 2013, we go over satellite’s critical role for emergency response and disaster recovery as...

General Dynamics Canada has selected Universal Switching Corporation to support the Canadian Mercury Global project. The Mercury Global project is the name given to Canada’s participation in, and leverage of, the Wideband Global Satellite (WGS) constellation. WGS will provide high-capacity, assured and secure satellite access for communications that are vital to the Government of Canada....

Spire Global has unveiled two new machine learning and analytics products backed by data from its constellation of ship-tracking satellites. According to Spire, both products make finding vessels and information about them easier and faster in combination with its Application Programming Interface (API). In the past, companies looking to ingest ship-tracking data would have to...

The AsiaSat 9 satellite for Asia Satellite Telecommunications (AsiaSat) of Hong Kong arrived at the Baikonur Cosmdrome in Kazakhstan on Aug. 27 in preparation for mission integration and launch aboard an International Launch Services (ILS) Proton Breeze M launch vehicle in September. AsiaSat 9 will be the third ILS Proton launch in 2017. Built by...

ViaSat has opened its new Asia-Pacific (APAC) headquarters, located in Melbourne, Australia. According to ViaSat, the new office is a signal of growth for the company and represents the need for new technologies and services across data communications in the APAC region specifically. Establishing Melbourne as the location of its APAC headquarters will enable the company to...