Focus: Telecom

The announcement that Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) will manufacture the NSS-12 spacecraft for SES New Skies came as small but further indication of the overall health of SS/L’s parent company just two days after the release of Loral Space and Communications Inc.‘s first quarter numbers. Loral’s revenues reached $221 million in the first quarter, up 28...

Orbital Sciences Corp. received a contract from Intelsat to manufacture the Intelsat-15 communications satellite, Orbital announced May 1. The satellite, scheduled for launch in early 2009, will be based on Orbital’s Star 2 platform and carry 22 Ku-band transponders. Intelsat also confirmed a contract to complete the Intelsat-16 spacecraft (formerly PAS-11R), which will serve as...

Poachers, beware: Illegal hunters are becoming the hunted through technology developed by an electrical engineer-cum-visiting scholar at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Having studied African elephants since 1992 and seen firsthand the ravages of the bushmeat trade and other poaching activities, Steve Gulick, a self-described "biologist wannabe,"...

High transponders prices continue to be the biggest concern for many in Africa and jumped to the forefront of discussions at Satcom Africa 2007. During the opening sessions of the March conference, an audience member launched a question-and-answer session with Alintuma Nsambu, Uganda’s minister of state for Information and Communications Technology, by asking why Africans,...

As governments throughout the world make improving education a more important goal, many are beginning to embrace — and help fund — satellite-enabled initiatives. Satellite-related technology has proven to be quite effective in helping governments deliver the same level of education enjoyed by students in urban areas to students in rural locations, and the role...

Customers are seeking robust encoding solutions that are futureproof and can be easily adapted to meet the needs of a marketplace where mobile content delivery requirements are emerging to join demand created by HDTV and IPTV. The objective is achieving whatever is necessary to ensure a superb viewing or online experience for a demanding audience...

Only seven months have passed since Matt Desch was named chairman and CEO of Bethesda, Md.-based Iridium Satellite LLC, the global supplier of mobile satellite communications services. The former CEO of New Jersey-based Telcordia Technologies, a supplier of telecommunications software and services, Desch takes over Iridium during a time of transition for the company, but...

Intelsat Ltd. has shut down a satellite transponder that was being used by Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers rebel group to make unauthorized broadcasts in Europe and Asia, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense announced. Phillip Spector, Intelsat’s general counsel, reported April 24 that the transponder used by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had...

Thales Alenia Space signed its first commercial deal with a new customer, Telenor. In what ultimately proved to be a two-horse race, Thales Alenia Space beat out Orbital Sciences Corp., which is manufacturing the Thor 5 spacecraft for Telenor, to clinch the deal. The deal will see Thales Alenia Space build Telenor’s Thor 6 satellite,...

Similar to the real-estate cliche about location, in winemaking, too, "locality is everything," says Eric Quanstrom of Appellation America. His San Francisco-based company and its Web site, http://www.AppellationAmerica.com, aim to reinforce the point by making available to consumers of all stripe satellite maps of some 3,400 wineries throughout North America. Utilizing Google Maps technology, and...