Month: February 2000

Italy’s Telecommunications Authority has now drafted national satellite television regulations that should end years of legislative uncertainty. It will also regularise the status of the country’s two pay-TV operators, Telepiù...

Globalstar launched in four countries in Europe last week. The MSS operator’s partner, Telecommunications par Satellites Mobile (TE.SA.M), a joint venture between France Telecom and Alcatel, said it expected to...

Telefonica Media, Telefonica’s media subsidiary, and Spanish digital terrestrial operator Onda Digital’s shareholders (Endesa, Union Fenosa and Telecom Italia) are studying the possibility of merging the two digital platforms in...

Sat 2000 was highly focused on (or obsessed by) the problems surrounding the industry’s two recent high profile MSS failures, namely Iridium and ICO. Numerous reports at the convention suggest...

Austrian public broadcaster ORF has formalised its decision to use Kirch Group’s d-box encryption system Betacrypt for the satellite transmission of its domestic television channels on Astra (19.2 degrees East)....

Independent analysts and investment bankers revealed markedly divergent views on the prospects for the future of global mobile at last week’s Sat 2000 conference in Washington DC… Mixed fortunes were...

Key: D – Digital A – Analogue 62 degrees E: Intelsat-602 D. Iran has joined the digital revolution at last. Sahar Universal Network, a cultural and educational channel, has launched...

Boeing’s Sea Launch confirmed it had won a major contract with PanAmSat. The deal calls for a single launch in the second quarter of 2000 (of PAS-9, a Hughes-built HS601...

Stephen Blum, president of industry analysts Tellus Venture Associates, forecasts a buoyant future for DirecTV and Echostar’s DBS services over North America. He says that DBS, despite cable’s massive penetration...

Spain’s Hispasat 1C, built by Alcatel, was successfully launched from an Atlas IIAS rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Station last Wednesday (February 2). International Launch Services co-ordinated the launch. Hispasat...