The GVF-EMP Partnership has announced preliminary details of speakers for the next event in the partnership’s portfolio of market vertical focused satellite communications programmes – Oilfield Connectivity 2019: The Next Generation Digital Oilfield.

Taking place in the principal hub of Europe’s offshore oil industry, the City of Aberdeen, the programme will examine latest developments in the communications technologies, services and applications that are mission critical for the exploration and production connectivity ecosystem.

Arianespace has orbited the final four latest satellites in the first phase of SES’s O3b constellation. The launch took place on Thursday, April 4, at 2:03 pm (local time) from the Guiana Space Center (CSG), Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana (South America).

Calian Group has acquired SatService, a solid player in the European satellite ground systems market, for euro €4.5 million or US$ 5.05 million.

NAB Show, the world’s largest annual conference and expo for professionals who create, manage, and distribute entertainment across all platforms, will host the renowned Creative Masters Series, as well as a Main Stage session and special programs for content creators. Providing exclusive insight into latest technologies and techniques that are reinventing the storytelling process, the 2019 NAB Show will be held April 6 – 11 in Las Vegas.

In much of the world spring is a season with a nice big payload of rituals, customs and a whiff of hope.  Easter, Passover and Ramadan, on the religious side, occur before summer’s sun blares at us.  Among my favorite rituals is “Hanami,” the ancient Japanese tradition of viewing cherry blossoms (sakura).  I go to Brooklyn’s Botanical Gardens for

After the launch of a whole new generation of small Sat-IoT systems at the end of 2018, the market is looking forward on how these networks are going to fulfill their promise of global low-cost IoT connectivity services. The significant decrease of the overall global IoT connectivity costs and power requirements these new generation Sat-IoT networks bring is expected to lead to a market expansion that will at least equal to the magnitude of this reduction at a factor 25.

In an article for this publication exactly a year ago, I suggested that maybe it was time for us to start thinking of ourselves as the bandwidth industry, rather than the satellite industry. Now, I’m not vain enough to think that that remark was what prompted DirecTV to announce at the end of last year that it would not be ordering any more satellites, and that it would instead concentrate on building out fiber and OTT offerings for its customers.

The Satellite Hub Summit @ CABSAT 2019 – GVF’s prominent MENA platform for addressing and analysing evolutionary and revolutionary transitions in satellite technologies, services, applications, and markets – which was a central feature at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre/Dubai World Trade Centre over 12th to 14th March once again provided an essential and incisive value-added experience for hundreds of exhibition attendees.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Michael O’Rielly, Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks will participate in two separate sessions at NAB Show, held April 6-11 in Las Vegas.

Chairman Pai will offer remarks at the NAB: We Are Broadcasters Celebration on Tuesday, April 9 at 3:00 p.m. on the Main Stage.

Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd today announced that its subsidiary, Singapore Technologies Engineering (Europe) Ltd, has entered into a conditional share purchase agreement to acquire a 100% ownership in Newtec Group NV, an established Belgium-based company in the satellite communications industry.

The consideration of US$281.24 million (€250 million or approximately S$383 million) on a cash-free and debt-free basis for the proposed acquisition, subject to closing adjustments, is payable in cash.