Owen D. Kurtin

As we move past a period of intensive financial engineering and consolidation, the satellite industry increasingly is focused on how it will compete with and complement terrestrial communications providers in […]

The private equity investment of capital into the satellite sector since 2003 has fuelled industry growth, consolidation, and rationalization. The subprime mortgage crisis and resulting credit crunch across investment and […]

The recent turmoil in credit markets has caused acquirers and their lenders in several high-profile pending merger and acquisition transactions to seek ways to withdraw from or renegotiate signed deals, […]

The use of so-called “reverse mergers” in the United States has blossomed in recent years. What formerly was an “on-the-cheap” method of attaining public company status — employed by sometimes […]

As 2007 winds down, it is interesting to think about the satellite industry subsectors and where they are going. In our industry, companies compete within subsectors such as fixed satellite […]

In September, we looked at video on demand (VOD) as a demand trigger for IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) takeup. We reviewed aspects of VOD technology and key considerations in VOD […]

In August, we reviewed IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) as a driver of next-generation fixed satellite service and direct broadcast satellite service. We looked at the technology and identified four likely […]

In June 1997, then-U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Reed Hundt called a hypothetical merger between AT&T and one of the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) spun off in the […]

The December announcement that Loral Space and Communications and a Canadian public pension fund will purchase Telesat Canada from Bell Canada Enterprises should not have surprised industry observers. In December, […]

The resurgence of Mobile Satellite Services (MSS), an industry and Wall Street pariah after the bankruptcies of Iridium, Globalstar and ICO in the late 1990s, was one of the major […]

2006 saw the culmination of the Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) consolidation process begun in 2004, and also brought ferment in the Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) sector with Inmarsat’s and Globalstar’s […]

In our June column, we reviewed the history and status of small satellites, generally considered to be those weighing less than 500 kilograms when fully fueled, from the commercial side. […]