People

Andrew Names New Satcom Group President

Andrew Corp. named Jude Panetta the president of the company’s satellite communications group. Panetta was formerly the vice president and general manager for Andrew’s base station subsystems group and he replaces Paul Cox, who resigned from his position at Andrew to become the president of Smiths Interconnect.

Panetta will oversee a product group that had fiscal 2004 sales of $209 million and an addressable market exceeding $1 billion. Prior to joining Andrew in June 2002, Panetta served as vice president of engineering and operations at Celiant Corp. He also held executive management positions at Adtran, Exide Electronics and General Electric.

CapRock Names CFO

Caprock Communications, a global satellite communications service provider, named James Davis as the company’s new chief financial officer. He brings to Caprock experience in domestic and international, financial and energy industry functions.

Prior to joining Caprock, Davis spent 11 years as CFO for Houston-based Parker Drilling Co. He also served in senior management positions with Mapco Inc., Mesa Petroleum, Gulf Oil Corp. and a private investment group.

PTC Appoints New Executive Director

At the closing plenary of the 27th Annual Conference of the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) on January 19, the President and Chairman of the Board of Governors Bruce Drake announced that Stephen G. Tom had been named Executive Director.

He highlighted Tom’s background as president of Teleport Consulting Group International, LLC; his accomplishments as the former CEO of Washington International Teleport, Washington, D.C.; and his role in developing other non-profit telecommunications organizations as chairman of the Society of Satellite Professionals International and the World Teleport Association.

The appointment takes effect im-mediately and Tom will be based at PTC headquarters in Honolulu, Hawaii.

SIA Names New Board Members

The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) named Tony Trujillo, vice president and chief administrative officer for Intelsat Ltd., as its new chairman for 2005. He replaces Kalpak Gude, vice president of government and regulatory affairs at Panamsat Corp. The SIA board also elected Joslyn Read, assistant vice president for regulatory affairs at Hughes Network Systems, as vice chair and Nancy Eskenazi, associate general counsel of SES Americom, as the organization’s treasurer. David Cavossa will remain the group’s executive director.

EMS Appoints New Account Manager

EMS Technologies Inc. appointed Clark Gordon as account manager for commercial sales in the Eastern United States for the company’s Satcom division. EMS said Gordon has more than 24 years of avionics technical, marketing and sales experience. EMS’ Satcom division specializes in the design and development of satellite-based terminals and antennas for the aeronautical, land mobile, maritime and emergency management markets.

Services

Globalstar Introduces New Asset Tracking Application

Globalstar announced the commercial availability of its Quick Locate service, which enables businesses and individuals to track assets that are remotely located or in areas not traditionally covered by terrestrial wireless services. The service determines the location of telemetry units attached to assets based on a 9-byte message the unit sends out, which includes GPS coordinates six times daily through the company’s satellite network. Hughes Launches New NOC In Germany

Hughes Network Systems said it launched a new dedicated network operations center (NOC) to be hosted at its European teleport in Griesheim, Germany. The new NOC will support additional satellite transponder capacity, which was brought online in mid-December to satisfy customer demand for satellite broadband services across Europe, the Middle East and Africa over the Eutelsat W3A satellite. The new NOC will support broadband access, local area network interconnection and IP multicasting.

Inmarsat Shifts Analog Traffic Over Indian Ocean

Inmarsat announced that it began operating its Inmarsat Analog voice and data service over its Indian Ocean-East satellite located at 109 degrees East beginning Last month. Service in the region was carried by the company’s Indian Ocean Region satellite at 64 degrees East. The change only affects Inmarsat A customers and may require users to re-point their antennas to continue to receive service.

ND SatCom To Equip The Swedish Armed Forces

ND SatCom won a contract to supply a turnkey tactical satellite communications system with related services for use within the network of the Swedish Armed Forces. The contract is worth approximately 5 Million euros. The delivery and implementation of an initial six units will take place through 2006.

The Tactical Satcom System (TSS) is based on ND SatCom’s technology for defense customers. It offers, besides classical telephony, also fax and data services and IP network interconnection, even under extreme environmental conditions. The various types of transportable tactical satellite communications terminals will secure the connection between Sweden and the regional headquarters of international missions via military or commercial satellites in C-, X- and Ku-band.

PolarSat Instals VSAT Equipment For Tsunami Relief Effort

Polarsat is working to play an integral role in rebuilding the communications infrastructure in South Asia following the tsunami disaster. Through Telenor Satellite Services/Corporate Networks and various NGOs, Polarsat’s VSAT equipment is currently being rushed first to Indonesia and Sri Lanka followed by the other countries affected by the tsunami. More than 30 sites are in route to South Asia and needs are currently being assessed for supplementary equipment. These sites will enable emergency voice and data communications facilitating the coordination of relief efforts.

Polarsat is actively working with the Canadian government to increase its participation in the relief efforts.

Telenor To Combine Service Offerings

Telenor Satellite Services and Sea Tel announced a business agreement under which the two companies will offer a combined package of Sea Tel WaveCall equipment with Telenor’s Sealink broadband communications services. The partnership includes bundling of Sea Tel’s hardware, including the WaveCall 4003 antenna with Sealink’s maritime VSAT services, delivering broadband communications at speeds of up to two megabits per second. The bundling enables users to have an always-on Internet connection, voice over IP calling services and continuous access to LANs and WANs.

Telesat Delivers Broadband To Aboriginal Communities In Canada

Telesat said it joined Industry Canada and aboriginal partners from Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba to launch the Northern Indigenous Community Satellite Network. The network will bring telehealth, distance learning, videoconferencing and other services to 30 remote communities.

Telstra Launches SP Solutions In The US Market

Telstra Inc., a provider of advanced communications services to multinational corporations, announced its Service Provider Solutions offerings, which offer customizable data communications services to carriers, service providers (SPs) resellers and system integrators (SIs) in the U.S. market.

Service providers will benefit from the ability to use this network on a ‘pay as you grow’ basis, which minimizes capital risk and operational costs by eliminating the need to build out a network. Telstra will provide customized service level agreements (SLAs) for these services and global 24/7 technical support, with in-country support at major destinations in the Asia Pacific region.

Vyvx Expands Virtual Teleport Services

Vyvx said that is expanded its virtual teleport services to New Orleans, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh. The virtual teleport service extends the uplink and downlink services provided by Vyvx’s three physical teleports in Atlanta, Denver and Los Angeles to 16 cities across the United States.

Contracts

Boeing Orders From Merrimac

Merrimac Industries Inc. said it received a $1.3 million order from The Boeing Co. to supply its Integrated Defense Systems division with beamforming networks and RF/microwave signal processing components for Boeing’s IIF GPS satellites.

The order is part of a contract, which Boeing estimated would reach $4.4 million in value, that Merrimac won in September 2003. This order was the second option Boeing exercised as part of that contract.

ESA Signs Further Russian Agreement

The European and Russian space industries will be working closer together in the launch arena going forward. This is the result of a new agreement signed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency for the long-term cooperation and partnership in the development, implementation and use of launchers. The first key component to the agreement relates to the exploitation of the Russian Soyuz launcher from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The second part concerns the collaborative development of future space transport systems, including reusable liquid engines, reusable liquid stages and experimental vehicles. ESA aims to have a new generation launcher ready by 2020.

Comtech Wins Defense Contract

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. said its Comtech Mobile Datacom Corp. received a letter contract not to exceed $13.6 million, with initial funding of $6.7 million, for mobile data communications services from an undisclosed organization.

Under the terms of the contract, Comtech is to supply satellite capacity, communications and network management services and associated support. The contract relates to the Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below-Blue Force Tracking, a real-time situational awareness battle command and control system.

Gilat Signs With IsNet

Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. said it signed an agreement with Turkey-based IsNet to supply it with SkyEdge network, including two hubs and 1,500 VSAT terminal sites. The satellite-based remote sites will be deployed throughout the country. SkyEdge will allow IsNet, an enterprises and consumers provider of various telecommunications services, to provide voice, embedded VPN and video applications to its customer base.

GlobeCast Ink Satellite Delivery Deal

GlobeCast said it signed a deal with BettingCorp for the satellite delivery of its PlayMonteCarlo interactive gaming channel on the BSkyB platform. The channel will be broadcast over the Eurobird satellite at 28.5 degrees East from GlobeCast’s Brookman’s Park teleport.

Globecomm Wins Infrastructure Contract

Globecomm Systems Inc. received a letter of award and purchase order valued at $5.7 million, with $1.4 million in follow-on provisions, from an unnamed direct-to-home video services provider in the Far East. Under the terms of the contract, Globecomm will design and build a new direct-to-home uplink facility. The facility will include two 13- meter Ku-band antennas along with tracking and all related subsystems. The company also will build a program acquisition system with a multi-feed receive-only antenna, multiple receive- only C-band antennas and all related subsystems.

Intelsat Inks Multi-Transponder Deal

Intelsat Ltd. announced that PT Indosat Tbk. signed a four-year, multi-transponder contract for leased capacity with Intelsat in order to support the growth of its satellite- based cellular and other telecommunications backhaul services in Indonesia. The capacity will be leased on the IS-709 satellite, located at 85 degrees East. Indosat will begin using the satellite during the first quarter of this year and expects to have the entire network up and running within 18 months.

Irdeto To Provide Global Content Security

Irdeto Access said ABS-CBN Broadcasting is migrating all its satellite direct-to-home customers in Europe and in the Middle East to the Irdeto PIsys for Digital TV content security. According to Irdeto, the company was selected by ABS-CBN due to piracy concerns.

Intrado To Provide 9-1-1 Call Center Solution

Intrado Inc. said that Iridium Satellite LLC selected the Intrado 9-1-1 Call Center Solution to upgrade the emergency services it offers subscribers when they dial 9-1-1 on their satellite phones. The move was done by Iridium to satisfy a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate that said Mobile Satellite Service providers that offer real- time, two-way, switched voice service interconnected with the public switched network must establish call centers to which subscribers’ emergency calls are routed and then forwarded to the appropriate public safety access point.

Harris To Provide MUOS Components

Harris Corp. said Lockheed Martin Space and Strategic Missiles selected it for a risk reduction design development program to provide unfurlable mesh reflectors for the U.S. Defense Department’s Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellites. The reflectors, two per satellite, will be manufactured at Harris facilities in Palm Bay, FL. The 5- and 12- meter reflectors, attached to the satellite bus by booms, include gold mesh reflective surfaces and are stowed for launch much like an umbrella and unfurled after the satellite reaches orbit. Harris said the contract has a potential three-year lifespan and could be valued up to $37 million.

SES Americom Signs with Roberts Broadcasting

SES Americom, an SES Global company, announced that Roberts Broadcasting has tapped its innovative SignalSAT service to share a full schedule of syndicated and network programming across three UPN affiliate television stations and open the door to cost efficient expansion opportunities.

SES Americom’s SignalSAT service offers a 3 Mhz digital signal, using C-band or Ku-band bandwidth. With a third station close to hitting the airwaves, Roberts Broadcasting will benefit from its satellite-based distribution platform, including SignalSAT’s point-to-multipoint C- and Ku-band delivery capability and affordability.

XM satellite radio Inks Data Services Deal

XM Satellite Radio signed an agreement with Nissan North America Inc. to supply the auto manufacturer with satellite-delivered data and telematics services, such as in-vehicle messaging and XM NavTraffic. Nissan currently offers XM receivers as options in 18 models.

Technology

Norsat Unveils New SSPA

Norsat International Inc. said it added a new line of solid-state power amplifiers (SSPA) to its product line and is describing those amplifiers as the smallest and lightest high-powered transmitters in the marketplace. The new line is available in 8W, 10W, 20W, 25W and 50W versions. (Norsat International Inc., 300 – 4401 Still Creek Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5C 6G9 Canada; Tel: 604/292-9000; Fax: 604/292-9100; Web: http://www.norsat.com)

Patriot Unveils New Antenna Mount

Patriot Antenna Systems released a new mount that enables a more practical Azimuth Fine Tune adjustment. The mount meets positioning requirements of VSAT antenna systems, specifically the Ka-band VSAT Tx/Rx antenna systems.(Patriot Antenna Systems, Inc., 704 North Clark Street,Albion, MI 49224; Tel: 800/470-3510; Fax: 517/629-6690; Web: http://www.sepatriot.com)

RaySat Brings Internet Access To In-Motion Vehicles

RaySat Inc., supplier of in-motion, low-profile, phased-array satellite antennas, unveiled its SpeedRay 3000 antenna that will deliver high-speed Internet services to in-motion vehicles and distributes the connection to users via Wi-Fi wireless LAN technology.

The system provides Internet download speeds of up to 2 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 128 kilobits per second. To provide continuous signal feeds, the SpeedRay 3000 uses a phased-array antenna that rotates inside its housing. Its panels constantly move up and down and back and forth to track and maintain the satellite signal regardless of the vehicle’s position relative to the satellite. The system’s Wi-Fi transceiver is built into the dish antenna housing and requires no separate installation or connections. (RaySat Inc., 8460-D Tyco Road, Vienna, VA 22182; Tel: 800/561-9280; Fax: 703-584-3775; Web: http://www.raysat.us)

Virtual Conexions Introduces Hub-Less VSAT

Virtual Conexions, a venture-funded company and new player in the VSAT industry, proposes its next-generation T1/E1 private networking solution over satellite. The VC-1000 modem is a hub-less, peer-to-peer private networking solution optimized for smaller networks.

This IP approach to satellite networking offers extended-LAN type capabilities in the sky (always-on), while providing for terrestrial performance of Ethernet and QoS -not VSAT satellite type. All remotes in the network are always connected to the virtual LAN, and can communicate with it in a perfectly symmetrical manner at up to 2Mbps. (Virtual Conexions Inc., 410 St. Nicolas, suite 600, Montreal, Quebec, H2Y 2P5, Canada; Tel: 514/842-4460; Fax: 514/842.4485; Web: http://www.virtualconexions.com)