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 this (not Japan.) But the sakura (cherry blossoms) are really nice in a part of New York not necessarily linked to delicacy.

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.

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.

C-COM Satellite Systems Inc. (TSXV: CMI) announced today it generated revenues of US$10.1 million (Ca$13,527,368) and a net after tax profit of US$1.72 million (Ca$2,299,501) or US 4.48 cents (6 Ca. cents per share). This compared with revenues of US$7.68 (Ca$10,282,319) and a net after tax profit of US$0.77 million (Ca$1,035,744) or US 2.24 cents (Ca. 3 cents per share) as reported in 2017, representing an increase of 31.6% and 122.0% respectively.

The boards of Inmarsat and Triton Bidco announced today that they have reached agreement for a US$3.4 billion in cash takeover by Triton Bidco of Inmarsat.

Triton Bidco is a newly formed joint venture company owned in equal shares by fund managers Apax Warburg Pincus, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board.

Under the terms of the acquisition, Inmarsat shareholders are to receive US$7.21 per Inmarsat share, comprised of a cash consideration of US$7.09 per share, and a final divided of USD0.12 to be paid on May 30.

The Satellite Hub Summit @ CABSAT 2019, GVF’s prominent MENA platform for addressing and analyzing evolutionary and revolutionary transitions in satellite technologies, services, applications, and markets, was a central feature at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre/Dubai World Trade Centre over 12th to 14th March. The Hub program started-off with the first of two important keynote addresses.

Leading figures from the Middle East’s growing eSports community believe that government-backing would give the Gen Z-led phenomenon the backbone it needs to “thrive” in the UAE and wider region.

Mohammad Albanna, who is on the board of the UAE eSports Federation, and Saeed Sharaf, CEO of eSport Middle East and president of the Syrian eSport Association, led an open panel discussion at the debut eSports Pavilion at CABSAT – the region’s leading event for the satellite, broadcast and filmed content media and entertainment industry.