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Sat-ND,
More international mailings lists:
http://www.sat-net.com/ |
"Today's success of the Delta II launch means that we have put the entire Iridium constellation into orbit in just 12 months," said Dr. Edward F. Staiano, vice chairman and chief executive officer of Iridium LLC. "We now have more than four months to finish integrating and testing the Iridium system before we go into commercial service as the world's first global wireless telephone company." Full beta testing is scheduled over the next few months.
Iridium consortium leader Motorola in a statement said it had set another industry record by completing its 15th and final launch of the initial satellite deployment campaign for the Iridium system in just 12 months.
A total of 72 satellites have been launched for the Iridium system, 67 of which are operational--just one more than needed. In other words, the failure rate of the Iridium satellites is almost seven percent. The performance level of these spacecraft is nonetheless within the company's expectations and the parameters required for commercial service later this year, Motorola said.
Iridium LLC has contracted with Motorola to operate and maintain the constellation for a five-year term commencing at commercial activation, with an option to extend the contract beyond the five years.
The Iridium system will enable subscribers to have voice, paging, fax, and data capability by using a hand-held phone and pager from virtually anywhere in the world.
Iridium: http://www.iridium.motorola.com/
Not just that--the geostationary satellite of the Orion class will from its slot be able to monitor communications from the Middle East to China and North Korea. With its 100-meter diameter antenna, the satellite resembles the Trumpet satellites, which aren't geostationary though.
As reported earlier, the beam width (and thus the efficiency) even of such giant antennas largely depend on the frequencies monitored. The lower the frequency, the lower the 'resolution.'
Additionally, Loral Skynet has reached an agreement with Fox to provide C-band capacity on the Telstar 4 satellite for the distribution of "The Magic Hour," a new nationally syndicated late night talk show hosted by basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson, which will debut in June.
In a related development, Fox has renewed its agreement to use Loral Skynet's Telstar fleet of satellites to broadcast the National Football League’s regular season Sunday afternoon National Football Conference (NFC) games throughout North America. Fox has used Loral Skynet's Telstar satellites since it won NFL broadcasting rights in 1993.
Loral Skynet: http://www.loralskynet.com/
Australis, which has generated accumulated losses of more than A$700 million since 1993, was placed in receivership two weeks ago by its U.S. bond-holders. Australis owes them US$500 million.
According to Telstra Corp, the Supreme Court of New South Wales found that Australis had defaulted on its obligations to senior bondholders and was now insolvent. Telstra said it was satisfied with the decision--hardly a surprise as Telstra and Keith Rupert Murdoch's News Corp own the rival pay-TV group Foxtel.
Nonetheless, there's a 25-year film distribution agreement between both groups which Foxtel wants to get out of. News Corp has argued earlier that the distribution agreement had to be terminated if Australis is insolvent. This would allow Foxtel to negotiate a new deal with Hollywood studios, which analysts suggest would slash Foxtel's monthly programming costs by more than half (US$7.70 per subscriber instead of the current US$17.)
The statement said BDB has placed a major order for set-top boxes (STBs) with the Grundig-TV/COM alliance. Their "plug-in-and-watch" set-top boxes and integrated digital receivers would soon be available from the local High Street.
British Digital Broadcasting, which last year was granted digital terrestrial TV licences, brings together two of the leading forces in UK television production and broadcasting: Carlton Communications and Granada Group. TV/COM will provide the circuit and set-top box level expertise, while Grundig will supply the manufacturing, marketing, consumer brand and retail distribution needed to bring digital TV into the home.
TV/COM: http://www.tvcom.com/
As mentioned frequently, Deutsche Telekom as the largest cable operator is participating on the technical side of the deal. Kirch and Bertelsmann last week offered to let other cable television operators market their digital TV platform. Not enough, says Otelo: They are "very sceptical of an alliance between Bertelsmann and Kirch," a spokesman was quoted as saying.
He confirmed press reports that Otelo has presented an alternative proposal to the Commission which my favourite news agency said was aimed at blocking the Kirch-Bertelsmann deal. It's not that simple, though.
Otelo reportedly asked the Commission to force Deutsche Telekom to spin off its cable TV network, something that is very likely to happen anyway and is not directly related to the Kirch/Bertelsmann/Telekom deal.
Otelo further suggested the creation of a "cable TV consortium" that would run the network and control the digital TV decoder [even though that would that be just another gatekeeping monopoly, maybe even bigger than that proposed by Kirch, Bertelsmann and Telekom.] "It means that we abandon the previous Bertelsmann-Kirch concept," the Otelo spokesman was quoted as saying. This would create competition between programme providers such as Kirch and Bertelsmann and cable TV operators.
What's really strange about Otelo's letter is the recipient. The European Commission can either say yes or no to the deal; modifications can only be proposed by the companies involved. It's not known whether they were even informed by Otelo.
Practically this means that about 40,000 Yugoslav cable subscribers are now for the first time watching the pan-European sports channel--if they're prepared to pay for the privilege. Satelit TV Video expects to sign up a total of 100,000 subscribers in one year's time.
According to Satelit TV Video, the company estimates that Serbia Telecom (owner of the leading cable operator TV Subotica) will push forward with plans for cabling several important cities, thus ensuring growth potential for the sector. Satelit TV Video hopes to reach the figure of 300,000 subscribers in the next three years, thus opening up the possibility of launching a Serbian language commentary channel of Eurosport.
U.S. national security adviser Samuel Berger also denied that reported Chinese campaign contributions had influenced President Bill Clinton's security policies, as suggested by some Republicans. He said he believed the possible funnelling of Chinese funds to the Democrats' 1996 campaign should be thoroughly investigated by the Justice Department.
According to Casey, no court order specifying what the company must do to comply with the preliminary injunction has been issued: "What we need is an order telling us how, when and why," Casey said. "And we still intend to take this thing to court," in other words: to fight the lawsuit that originated the preliminary injunction.
The court action resulted from a lawsuit still before the court filed by CBS affiliate stations, CBS, FOX and others.
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