Focus: Telecom

Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) notified TerreStar Networks Inc. that delivery of the TerreStar-1 satellite has been delayed by 10 months, with a new delivery date scheduled for August 2008, TerreStar announced. SS/L subcontractors and internal product development for the delay involving S-band low noise amplifiers, oscillators and the S-band feed array were cited for the delay....

Norsat Norsat International Inc. made a final payment on its $1 million short-term debt, the company announced May 31, marking the first time since 1983 that the company had been debt free. "This is a significant milestone in the company’s renewal efforts," Amiee Chan, president and CEO of Norsat, said in a statement. "The pay...

Is eight enough? That’s the question facing Globalstar Inc. even as the first four of the handheld satellite phone service provider’s eight planned 2007 satellites were placed into orbit on May 30. The satellites, launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Starsem-operated Soyuz rocket, are intended to augment the company’s failing first-generation constellation. Globalstar plans to...

Problems with Globalstar’s constellation of satellites led the company to warn in February that customers could begin to suffer from service loss as early as 2008. Many of the company’s 40 satellites are suffering from degraded performance in their S-band antennas, and the company’s second-generation system will not be in orbit quickly enough to stop...

High-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) is a 3G mobile broadband solution that absolutely thrills the growing ranks of users who find their download speeds improved by a factor of four or five. For satellite service providers, HSDPA is opening some new doors — while perhaps closing others. HSDPA first emerged in 2005. While the solution...

What is the likely role of satellite infrastructure for next-generation broadband deployment? Not much, if the answer is based on recent reports produced in the United Kingdom. Next-generation networks generally are defined as the high-capacity digital networks of the future, but the precise amount of bandwidth necessary for a system to be classified as a...

The Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) sector, which has shown signs of settling into a period of operational growth after three years of financial engineering and consolidation, was thrown back into turmoil in April when reports surfaced that private equity firm The Blackstone Group has made a $6 billion bid for the largest operator, Intelsat. Intelsat,...

Following several years of transition, Hughes Network Systems LLC established itself as an independent entity in January 2006. Since then, Chairman and CEO Pradman Kaul has found that life free of the demands of a corporate owner brings a mixed set of circumstances. “It’s made things much more focused and simple, but it’s more difficult...

The ability to beam ads and promotional content to any number of sites simultaneously via satellite remains a remarkable concept, and network reliability and cost concerns that may have conspired to turn prospective customers away in the past are being overcome by advancements in technology. Digital signage solutions are becoming more attractive in Europe and...

An increase in the number of navigation satellites orbiting the globe promises to usher in a new era of signal availability and accuracy. But it will take the creativity of equipment makers and consumers, as well as technological advances in chips and receivers, in order for users to take full advantage of these new and...