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PanAmSat reportedly said "minor delays" caused the delay without further elaborating. The flight was originally scheduled for July 10. Galaxy X, if launched successfully, will probably undergo in-orbit tests at 127 degrees West.
Additionally, PanAmSat has requested FCC permission to relocate its BrasilSat A1 from 79 degrees West to 144 degrees West for 180 days.
William Wade, deputy chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based AsiaSat, was quoted as saying that "we will hesitate to launch AsiaSat 4 in the year 2000 if there is no sign of a recovery in the satellite market then."
AsiaSat expects that its next satellite, AsiaSat 3S which is to be launched in the first half of 1999, will have a utilisation rate of some 30 percent at the end of that year. Wade said he expected the transponder use to "go up to 70 percent three years after the launch."
The satellite will act as a replacement for AsiaSat 1 but offers more transponders: 28 in the C-band and 16 in the Ku-band. AsiaSat does not expect its next satellite to boost revenues, though: "Since a new satellite will cost more in depreciation and insurance, we do not expect a lot of increased revenue from AsiaSat 3S."
Ofek 3 was expected to end its operational life this year. According to Yuval Ne'eman, chairman of the Israel Space Agency, the satellite might even work two more years: "Sometime before it finishes its five years we'll probably replace it."
The reason for the Ofek 4 launch failure last January was a malfunction in the second stage of the Shavit launch rocket, Ne'eman was quoted as saying. It seems to be unclear what caused the malfunction, though: We have first to be very clear about what wrong the last time in order to find solutions for it," Ne'eman added.
The US$50-million spy satellite, unlike its predecessor, reportedly was capable of delivering all-weather imagery.
"The launch was made from a Delfin-type submarine at 7.15 a.m. Moscow time (0315 UTC) in the Barents Sea," a Navy spokesman said. The Tubsat-N probe reached its orbit 85 minutes after launch.
The 10-kilogram satellite, developed by the Berlin Technical University, will provide communication services and also help count northern animals and relay other ecological information.
The spokesman said it was the first such launch from a submerged vessel. The RSM-54, called SS-N-23 in the West, is a standard weapon of Russian nuclear-powered submarines.
Public television broadcaster NHK showed scenes of the smaller satellite inching in towards the larger one, which gripped it with three sets of claw-like pincers. [Gosh! Truly appalling. They show that on public TV in Japan?!] The experiment was part of preparations for transporting equipment and supplies to the International Space Station.
The US$229-million Kiku 7 was launched in November last year by a Japanese-made H-2 rocket into its present orbit 550 kilometers, but since then was plagued by a series of problems in its on-board engine and antenna.
Additionally, the Japanese space agency NASDA had to use a U.S. satellite for relaying data. The indigenous Comets (Kakehashi) satellite that should have performed this task ended up in a wrong orbit after launch.
NASDA will conduct five more docking experiments through early next year with the satellites. "In the final round we will try docking them from nine kilometers (six miles) apart," an official was quoted as saying.
Russia's stake, currently 1.7 percent, will rise to almost 7 percent after the launch of Eutelsat's SESAT satellite aboard a Russian Proton rocket planned for December 25 (originally scheduled "for launch in the beginning of 1998" as you can still read on some of Eutelsat's web site.)
The SESAT satellite will be produced by Alcatel of France and Russia's Research and Production Association for Applied Mechanics, better known as NPO-PM. (Itar-Tass also claimed the W satellites would be a co-production, but the report contains some mistakes anyway, so you don't have to believe anything.)
Nahuelsat claims that national companies would lose their positions in the domestic market when being forced to compete with U.S. companies. Nahuelsat called for the agreement to be reviewed. It should only be implemented when there was an orbital position for its own satellite.
The newspaper noted that "the agreements as it stands, will benefit directly the satellite television service DirecTV that will start up using Panamsat's satellites."
The partnership interests, equivalent to 16.8 million shares of Globalstar Telecommunications Limited, were purchased at a price of US$100 per partnership interest (corresponding to US$25 per share of Globalstar stock). Half of the total sale proceeds, US$210 million, have been deposited into an escrow account to fund the purchase of Globalstar gateways and user terminals by the founding service provider partners.
In a separate but related transaction, Loral sold to three Soros funds an aggregate of 8,400,000 shares of Globalstar stock at a purchase price of US$29 1/6 per share. The transaction results in the Soros funds having acquired an approximately 4 percent indirect interest in Globalstar Limited Partnership.
Globalstar: http://www.globalstar.com/
SBS and TA-Media will establish a license holding company and submit an application for a commercial broadcast license with the Swiss authorities. The companies will propose the launch of a full-fledged Swiss channel in 1999, targeted to the German-speaking community of Switzerland, which will feature a mix of general entertainment and news programming.
With over 2.5 million television homes and a population of over 7 million, Switzerland is one of the last remaining countries in Western Europe without a mature private television market. [I could live without that, really.]
In German speaking Switzerland, there are approximately 1.9 million TV households comprised of some 4.9 million German-speaking people. The German speaking TV advertising market is expected to grow from US$223 million in 1997 to US$324 million in 2000.
SBS is a European commercial television and radio broadcasting company with operations in Western and Central Europe. Countries where SBS currently broadcasts include Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary, Finland, Slovenia and Italy.
"Probably at three, there were too many, but if it's down to only one, I don't think consumers will benefit so much--especially when Japan is going to be deregulated," he was quoted as saying. "For the time being, I think two is a good answer."
Talking to my favourite news agency, he also denied reports the company was losing out to SkyPerfecTV, which is the product of a merger between Keith Rupert Murdoch's Sky Broadcasting and Japan's PerfecTV.
The company had acquired 140,200 customers by the end of June--not much compared to SkyPerfecTV's 750,000. But Chang said new subscriptions in June represented about half of a total of about 70,000 people who signed up for digital pay-TV services during the month.
He also blamed the weak economy for the lack of consumer interest in pay-TV: "When the economy is not growing, everybody is suffering," he said. "But as soon as the economy starts growing, we'll get back."
by Dr Sarmaz
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Prem Kumar said three summonses had been sent to the media tycoon at his addresses in the United States and Australia. But they had returned unserved because KRM refused to accept them, the United News of India reported.
The judge has also ordered India's Foreign Ministry to serve the summonses through diplomatic channels, but there is little the courts can do if KRM refuses to accept them.
A New York-based spokesman for KRM's News Corp. had no comment on the reports.
The 1998 Residential Convergent Services Study assesses the current and future convergence landscape in the U.K. analysing the impact of competition on the residential market and on providers of fixed line telephony and Pay TV services to U.K. consumers. J.D. Power and Associates interviewed approximately 4,200 households served by BT, BSkyB, CWC, Comcast, General Cable, NTL and Telewest.
In April the government announced that BT would be allowed to provide TV services to the 17% of the UK population who are not within a cable TV franchise. The so-called "BT broadcasting ban" will be lifted entirely in 2001 [sufficient time to lose money.]
Further findings of the study
Approximately one in ten U.K. households purchase both telephony and Pay TV services from the same provider, spending £1 billion on convergent services. Among the major convergent providers (CWC, Comcast, General Cable, NTL and Telewest), NTL has the highest proportion of customers purchasing telephony and Pay TV services from the same company. However, because of its larger size, CWC captures the highest percentage of convergent revenue.
U.K. households that combine their telephony and Pay TV service with a convergent service provider (CSP) are significantly more satisfied with their services than those who use separate providers.
About 50% of U.K. households are interested in purchasing multiple services from a single provider in the future, indicating a favourable propensity for growth in the convergent market.
If given the opportunity, most current convergent consumers are likely to choose their cable company for additional telecommunication services because, according to their customers, they provide the best service and have competitive pricing. In contrast, single service consumers are more likely to choose a fixed line provider because they are more familiar with them and feel they are more reliable.
The 1998 Residential Convergent Services Study is based on the results of syndicated studies funded independently by J.D. Power and Associates acting as an unbiased third party analysing consumer opinions.
A spokesman for BSkyB angrily dismissed the study: "This report is based on so many questionable assumptions that it is difficult to see it as anything but ill-informed sensationalism. It will be treated with great scepticism by anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the pay TV market."
J.D. Power: http://www.jdpower.com/
BSkyB:
http://www.sky.co.uk/
Geez! Watch out for July98.html... if the world still exists at the end of this month, that is.
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