The subjects of the oil & gas vertical market and that of High Throughput Satellites are rarely outside the scope of anyone connected with the development and delivery of satellite-based communications solutions these days. Indeed, as you read this column – during, I believe, the first week of December – one of the latest of the GVF-EMP Conference Partnership events covering the first of these subjects has already been successfully concluded, and another, covering the later subject, will be very nearly, or even actually, underway.

CASBAA will kick off 2014 with its first event of the New Year, Philippines in View, taking place on Tuesday, January 21, 2014 at the Edsa Shangri-La in Manila.

“We are happy to be starting off the New Year in the Philippines, one of the most dynamic markets in the Southeast Asian media landscape,” said Christopher Slaughter, CEO, CASBAA. “The country offers vast potential for growth for the multichannel TV industry and CASBAA has lined-up an impressive roster of speakers and guests to examine the business of pay TV in the Philippines.”

AST  announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Wright Satellite Connections, (WSC) based in Wellington, New Zealand, increasing the previous shareholding from 49% to 75%.

WSC provides mobile satellite communication solutions to defence, maritime, civil defence and other organisations for their use around the world, and their strength lies in providing end to end solutions covering, hardware, airtime connections, training, peripherals such as encryption, and after sales care.

Signalhornhas been awarded funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop a gateway that will allow its customers to monitor all aspects of their services with the company. The funding is part of ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) program.

Intelsat S.A. today announced that Intelsat Jackson Holdings S.A., its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary  has amended its senior secured credit agreement, which governs its approximately US$ 3.1 billion senior secured term loan facility and $500 million revolving credit facility, effective today.

Increasing popularity and greater airplay of sports such as soccer, golf, tennis, badminton, table tennis and athletics across the region signal a growing appetite among consumers for sports-based programming. To ensure high quality and timely delivery of sports content, businesses are actively exploring broadcasting technologies such as 4K/Ultra HD (UHD), file-based management systems, multi-screen experiences, multi-platform streaming, Nextgen broadcasting, Over-The-Top (OTT) to cater to the burgeoning sports industry in the Asia Pacific region.

As OTT players mature, Voxofon expects accelerating market disruption, more options for consumers. Expect connected devices to integrate even further into the way humans live, work and play, which will accelerate adoption of an ever-expanding array of highly specialized over-the-top (OTT) services and further fragment the telecom ecosystem. These are among the top five predictions for OTT in 2014 issued today by Voxofon, a rapidly growing provider of OTT voice and messaging services.

Voxofon's top 5 predictions for OTT communications services for 2014 include:

Coinciding with the SATCON Satellite Communications Conference & Expo held here November 13-14 at the Javits Convention Center, Teal Group space analysts have identified 3,164 space payloads proposed to be built and launched to earth or deep space orbits between 2013 and 2032. They estimate the value of these satellites and other space payloads at more than US$ 235 billion.

An important project involving satellite operator Eutelsat and regional ISP Caribsat to bridge the digital divide in the French West Indies and French Guiana will make use of Newtec’s Sat3Play® VSAT Broadband Platform.

Satellite operator O3b today moves a step closer to service launch for its customers with the formal opening of its Gateway (satellite ground station) in preparation for its launch and service commencement in 2014. The facility was formally opened by the President of Peru, Ollanta Humala, at a ceremony attended by O3b CEO Steve Collar on Monday, 25 November at 11.00, local time.