Hughes has finished work on the world's largest commercial communi-cations satellite factory, a facility with nearly 600,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
Hughes Space and Communi-cations, a unit of Hughes Electronics, added a thermal stress chamber, a nearfield antenna range facility and a dual-capacity thermal vacuum cham-ber to its production facility. The extras are contained in 41,000 square feet of testing space.
According to President Donald L. Cromer, "These additions mean we can continue to shorten our
production cycle times. We can also manage our personnel and capital resources better, and can reduce
program risk. We believe we are the first to establish a factory with such consummate capability."
PanAmSat will launch a new satellite to serve as the long-term transmission platform for NetSat Servicos, the Brazilian DTH television service, and for Sky's "Multi-Country Platform," the DTH platform serving the balance of Latin America other than Mexico.
NetSat and the Multi-Country Platform are part of the Sky Latin America alliance. The satellite, called PAS-6B, will replace the service currently offered on the PAS-6 satellite. PanAmSat expects to launch PAS-6B during the 4th quarter of 1998.
The PAS-6B Atlantic Ocean Region satellite is under construction by Hughes Space and Communi- cations, and will be completed on an expedited schedule. The HS 601 HP satellite will contain 32 high- power Ku-Band transponders with South American coverage. Arianespace is scheduled to launch the satellite from Kourou, French Guiana, during the 4th quarter of 1998.
The current PAS-6 satellite, built by Space Systems/Loral, was launched on August 8, and commenced service on Sept. 19. The satellite has experienced several circuit failures in the spacecraft's solar arrays, which have required PanAmSat to forego use of some transponders initially and will require the company to turn off additional transponders in later years.
Until PAS-6B is operational, PanAmSat will continue to provide NetSat and the Multi-Country
Platform with service on the PAS-6 and PAS-3 satellites
Boeing's efforts to restructure operations led to the elimination of nearly two-thirds on its workforce involved in the Teledesic satellite venture.
With the layoffs, Teledesic's main competitor Motorola may be poised to get a piece in the "Internet in the sky" project, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology.
Boeing executives insist they are strongly committed o Teledesic, but nearly a year after it won the
prime contract to build the $9-billion project, Boeing has yet to determine just how and where the 288-
satellite system will be built.
The Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association said it will support a DTH industry inquiry into Ku-Band frequency band sharing between geostationary and non-geostationary satellites, an issue that is now before the FCC.
SkyBridge petitioned the FCC seeking to amend current U.S. rules and allow spectrum sharing among geostationary and non-geostationary satellites in the Ku-Band. Sky-bridge's efforts began at the World Radio Conference in November, where it won support for linking the two frequency bands and promising to limit interference between satellites.
The U.S. delegation at the conference was taken off-guard by the adopted proposal, and was unable to
block it despite concerns over a lack of technical data and review of sharing limits.
Hughes Network Systems and its DirecPC satellite-based Internet service entered into a multi-year bundling agreement with Epoch Internet of Irvine, Calif.
Under terms of the agreement, DirePC will bundle Epoch's Internet service with its Turbo Internet packages. Hughes said the agreement will allow it to provide customers with the option to receive their ISP service from DirecPC rather than having to purchase and be billed for those services separately.
The new offering will be available in the second quarter.
Additionally, DirecPC unveiled Global Digital Package Delivery, allowing users to send any type of
data file, from heavy graphics and text to video, from one site to any number of sites. The files will be
received by DirecPC dishes and forwarded to a recipient's server or individual PCs.
U.S. officials said they may allow Russia to launch more foreign commercial satellites to raise millions of dollars for its cash-strapped space agency.
Those officials said they want to move carefully, however, and before lifting a limit on launches they want Russia to show it won't transfer missile technology to Iran.
Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin plan to discuss the topic during their annual meeting.
The administration argues the two matters aren't linked, although U.S. officials acknowledge it would
be difficult to reward Moscow if Russia continues to assist Iran's ballistic missile program.
Japan's Itochu Corp. is speaking with U.S. motion picture companies over a joint investment in various broadcasting platforms, including digital satellite broadcasting.
An agreement would give Itochu's Star Channel the right to broadcast in Japan films made by the U.S. movie companies for the next 10 years. The four studios involved in the talks are Warner Brothers, Universal, Paramount and MGM.
The daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said Star Channel would pay up to 60 billion yen for the broadcasting
rights.
Loral Space & Communications signed a long-term satellite launch agreement with China, allowing the country's Great Wall Industry Corp. to carry out five launches for Loral between March 1998 and March 2002.
China's commercial space program suffered a number of failures in 1995 and 1996. Last year, however, China successfully launched all of its payloads, includ-ing two communications satellites for Motorola.
Great Wall added it was holding talks with other potential clients.
British Sky Broadcasting and its June digital launch could face another problem: A dispute between two satellite companies that may hinder start-up of the service.
The Financial Times reported that Europe's Eutelsat and SES were both set to begin broadcasts from adjacent orbits in space, using the same frequency band. That could interfere with BSkyB's digital channels, due to be uplinked to an Astra satellite owned by SES, the paper said.
BSkyB's planned 200-channel digital satellite TV service has seen other delays, and was initially
scheduled for launch this spring.
The Federal Communications Commission granted permission for the merger of Loral and Orion Network Systems on Tuesday, paving the way for a $490 million transaction that will boost Loral's satellite holdings.
"The synergy between Loral's current portfolio of satellite assets, especially at Loral Skynet and SatMex, and Orion's assets furthers Loral's building block strategy and allows the company to provide higher value- added satellite services and to extend its reach into high-growth international markets," said Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz.
There are about 28 million shares of Orion stock outstanding. The corporate data network/satellite
provider has satellite capacity over the Atlantic and spectrum over the Pacific that is expected to be
occupied in 1999.
Four U.S. companies are among 12 global telecommunications interests hoping to become part of a $1.2 billion African satellite project.
The 12 bidders made bids on the system at the Ivory Coast headquarters of the Regional African Satellite Communications Organization (Rascom). U.S. companies hoping to join the consortium are Intelsat, Hughes Space and Communications, African Continental Telecommuni-cations and Comsat.
Considered the biggest pan-African investment, the satellite project is intended to propel Africa into the
21st century by giving it telephone links within the continent and the rest of the world. The system will
include installation of 500,000 fixed solar-powered telephone stations with international access.
Fuji Television Network will start digital broadcasting via satellite beginning in late April.
The network will offer three channels through Japan Sky Broadcasting's platform. Content includes variety shows and sports.
JSkyB and PerfecTV will merge operations in early April, creating the nation's largest digital satellite
broadcasting platform.
DigitalXpress, a St. Paul-based provider of satellite communications services, has added full screen and full motion desktop video delivery to its suite of broadcast communication services.
XpressData, the company's data broadcast service, has been enhanced to support Internet Protocol stream-ing and multicasting. The service provides MPEG-1 compression of analog video, which can be transported to the DigitalXpress uplink center via switched terrestrial services such as primary rate ISDN.
The digitized signal is con-ditioned, encrypted and uplinked immediately to the DigitalXpress satellite network, then broadcast over the North American footprint of the SBS-6 satellite. Equipment includes an antenna and VCR-sized receiver at each site, along with either an XpressCard installed in a computer or an XpressRouter installed on the network.
DigitalXpress also has signed a business agreement with Oakwood Homes, the nation's largest retailer of manufactured housing.
Oakwood is tapping Digital-Xpress' services to broadcast retail sales training programs and other
company communications. Oakwood employs more than 7,000 people nationwide at 330 retail sites, 17
manufacturing facilities, and three regional offices.
British Sky Broadcasting agreed to stop bundling the Disney Channel with its subscription movie channels, a move that came after pressure from regulators.
The Independent Television Commission had investigated the matter after Videotron, a British cable
operator receiving Sky programming, complained that its viewers were required to purchase two BSkyB
movie channels before they could get the Disney Channel. Beginning today, the Disney Channel will be
available to British cable operators on a stand-alone basis, the commission said.
The European Commission said Monday it will clear French digital TV platform Television Par Satellite (TPS), owned by Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux and M6 Numerique, among others.
The European Union's com-petition watchdog said it would allow TPS to be the sole digital platform to distribute French TV channels TF1, France 2, France 3 and M6 but for the next three years, with the possibility of an extension if justified.
Canal Plus, France's pay-TV company which owns digital platform called CanalSatellite, has criticized
the exclusive arrangements. The French parliament is expected to look into the issue as part of a debate on
a new broadcasting bill.
Blonder Tongue Laboratories will design, manufacture and market commercial satellite receivers capable of receiving DirecTV that will be used in headend applications in both franchised and private cable markets.
The agreement, signed with Hughes Network Systems, covers five years and permits Blonder Tongue to manufacture and sell commercial digital satellite receivers for all headend-based commercial applications, whether in the franchised or private cable markets.
The contract with Hughes Network Systems is similar to an existing deal with Houston Tracker
Systems, a subsidiary of EchoStar.
DirecTV Japan will add 25 new channels to its service beginning April 1, raising the number of video channels to 88.
DirecTV Japan began broad-casting last December, and will compete with a 200-channel rival this spring when News Corp.-backed Japan Sky Broadcasting and 500,000-subscriber-strong PerfecTV merge platforms.
DirecTV Japan is owned by Hughes' DirecTV International, Matsushita Electric Industrial and Mitsubishi, among others.
A multimillion dollar communi-cations satellite for Japan has malfunctioned after a rocket failed to send it into its proper orbit.
Japan's National Space Develop-ment Agency is investigating why its H-2 rocket did not complete a second stage burn that caused the mission failure. It was the first time an H-2 rocket, developed under the country's first space vehicle program, had failed.
The two-stage rocket lifted off from Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture in south- western Japan, about 620 miles southwest of Tokyo. The satellite, which was going to be used for developing new satellite broad-casting services such as wide-band high-definition TV and regional broadcasting, was valued at $360 million.
NASDA will be responsible for putting the next generation of digital broadcast satellites into orbit for Japan.
Intelsat, the Washington, D.C.-based international satellite con-sortium, hopes its newest satellite, the 806 will give it an edge in the video delivery business in Latin America.
Once successfully launched and tested, 806 will serve cable operators and other multichannel providers, dubbed by the organization as "the largest video cable community in the Americas." The bird will be deployed at 319.5 degrees, and joins the consortium's 805 satellite serving the Latin American region.
Dolores Martos, director of Intelsat's Latin American sales and marketing team, said there was little consideration for a DTH satellite service. "The aim for 806 is to serve video distribution and cable headends," she said. "We could do DTH, but we would have to address the issues impacting those companies now."
Those issues include delivery of local content, a critical factor for companies to consider in Latin America, and the need to attract strategic partners in each country. Martos admits delivering services across the continent is easy with two dominant languages, but overcoming low penetration levels and combating a large cable presence in key cities like Buenos Aires could be difficult.
Still, Martos wouldn't rule out a home satellite service. "DTH is still a possibility."
Intelsat 806 would become part of the satellite group Intelsat wants to spin off into a publicly-held company called INC. The spin-off proposal has detractors, and Intelsat's perceived control of certain satellite markets has been criticized in the past by companies like PanAmSat.
Rockwell Semiconductor Systems' Digital Infotainment Division unveiled a two-device chipset that provides a fully integrated 1 to 30 Msps DBS receiver solution.
By integrating the tuner function onto a chip, and dramatically reducing external discrete compo-nents, Rockwell has created a solution that provides space savings and has the potential to reduce the cost of the receiver by as much as 30 percent. It also enables the tuner to be implemented directly onto the motherboard.
Systems for DirecTV and EchoStar will be able to deploy the chip.
The satellite receiver chipset is intended for use in DVB and DSS consumer and commercial set-top and
PC receivers as well as satellite-ready digital VCRs. It will also enable development of new applications,
such as digital-satellite equipped televisions.
GE American Communications said its GE-5 satellite is scheduled for launch later in the year and
should be operational by the fourth quarter. GE-5 will service news gathering needs of television
broadcasters as well as wideband data applications of business users. GE Americom provides satellite
newsgathering for ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, and the company said it could see steady growth from
broadcast stations and cable programmers providing up-to-the-minute coverage of regional and national
events. The satellite has 16 Ku-Band transponders with 54 MHz bandwidth, allowing users to
simultaneously carry two analog signals on the same transponder. GE-5 users can also carry a mix of
analog and digital signals at the same time.
ALTA Wireless, the EchoStar-backed company looking for LMDS licenses up for auction at the FCC, was outbid for the Denver territory in the eleventh round.
BTA Associates placed a $17.4 million bid for the Denver license, covering the same city EchoStar and ALTA call home.
ALTA and EchoStar are reportedly interested in LMDS licenses as a second option to deliver local stations.
WNP Communications has secured top bids in eight markets. With bids totaling $124.6 million, WNP has secured the No. 1 position for licenses covering New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and others.
After the seventeenth round of the auction, net revenues have reached $406.3 million.