Focus: Telecom

In today’s highly competitive business arena, executive trainers not only are seeking technology that can streamline their training and corporate communications but also advanced network platforms that will enable them to strategically grow faster and more profitable than their competitors. Even though satellite-enabled distance learning allows instructors to interact with their workforce using audio, video...

Iridium Satellite LLC (www.iridium.com) is providing satellite data links to enable e-mail, Internet and intraship communications for the passengers and crew of M/V Polar Star, an expedition cruise ship that specializes in excursions from Antarctica to the Arctic. The data application was developed and installed by Global Marine Networks, an Iridium value-added developer.

Digitalglobe (www.digitalglobe.com) and Valtus Imagery Services (www.valtusimagery.com), a division of Northwest Geomatics Ltd., entered into a three-year data distribution partnership to offer Digitalglobe’s high-resolution commercial satellite imagery to Valtus customers. Valtus customers who subscribe to the company’s Vista and Views online services will be able to access Digitalglobe’s 60-centimeter resolution Quickbird satellite imagery in addition...

Loral Skynet do Brasil (www.loralskynetdobrasil.com.br) received a contract from Universidade de Santo Amaro to provide Ku-band services for a distance-learning initiative. The Sao Paulo, Brazil-based university will use Skynet’s Estrela do Sul-1 satellite to broadcast courses to four locations initially, with expansions to more than 100 sites throughout Brazil planned by February 2006.

Globalstar LLC will use its planned system of terrestrial repeaters to boost the availability of its Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) in urban areas and within buildings, but the company also envisions multiple business possibilities growing out of the system. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved Globalstar’s petition to offer ancillary terrestrial component services (ATC) in...

Eutelsat ended 2005 in hectic fashion, closing the saga of its efforts to go public with a successful initial public offering (IPO) Dec. 2 after an earlier false start. With Eutelsat now a publicly traded entity, it becomes the next focus of the consolidation efforts that have started in the Fixed Satellite Services industry, said...

"…Via Satellite can’t be merely good, it will have to be better, striving to be the best…" Those were the words of then Editor and Publisher Irl Marshall, in 1986, when he launched Via Satellite magazine to become the definitive trade journal of the then fledgling satellite broadcasting industry. In those days, the business developments...

By Gerry Oberst With its enormous landmass and advanced space program, the Russian Federation might be expected to have a thriving satellite communications market. But a high-level meeting took place in Moscow in early November to explore why Russia, in fact, does not rely more on satellite networks to meet the country’s communications needs. The...

By Peter J. Brown As Hurricane Katrina approached the U.S. Gulf Coast, she let everyone know that well before a natural disaster occurs, officials need satellite links close at hand. Unfortunately, this lesson was learned the hard way. For months, emergency preparedness officials and satellite industry executives have been aggressively lobbying for more robust communications...

By Nick Mitsis and Jason Bates In a year dominated by IPOs and high-profile mergers, it is easy to characterize 2005 as a year of beginnings instead of a year of accomplishments. True, those business ventures that grabbed daily headlines are signs of greater things to come, but some significant events will indeed hallmark 2005,...