SES and Gazprom Space System (GSS) will work together to provide additional satellite capacity for the Russian market, the companies said. As part of the multi-year agreement, SES moved its ASTRA 1F satellite to 55 degrees east from 51 degrees east, the companies said. GSS will use 16 Ku-band transponders on the satellite for services in Western Russia, the companies said. The GSS Yamal-402 satellite, scheduled for launch in 2012, will be placed at 55 degrees east and SES will use capacity on that satellite once it becomes operational, they said. Other terms weren’t released.
Russia export controls and sanctions
The use of export controls and sanctions on Russia has surged since the country's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and especially its invasion of Ukraine in in February 2022. Similar export controls and sanctions have been imposed by U.S. allies, including the EU, U.K. and Japan. The following is a listing of recent articles in Export Compliance Daily on export controls and sanctions imposed on Russia:
Consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere are spending less time watching broadcasts live and more on streaming TV online, Ericsson said Friday. In America, “the majority of families combined TV viewing with the use of Twitter, Facebook, texting, voice calls and forum discussions about what they watched,” said Anders Erlandsson, an Ericsson ConsumerLab adviser. “This is particularly the case when watching reality shows and sports.” The company interviewed about 13,000 people in that country, Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Russia, Spain, the U.K. and elsewhere.
The ITU Radio Regulations Board modified the rules of procedure for the treatment of a change of notifying an administration acting on behalf of an intergovernmental satellite telecommunication organization when it wants to designate a new notifying administration vis-à-vis ITU for its satellite networks, the Radiocommunication Bureau (BR) said in a letter to administrations. Twenty-five of 26 countries in Intersputnik had asked the BR to change the notifying administration for its networks from Belarus to Russia (CD March 30 p16). Belarus wanted to hold onto three networks that Intersputnik had said belong to the group. The change instructs the bureau to make the changes upon receipt of due written notification to that effect by the legal representative of the intergovernmental organization in question under the terms of its “constitutive Act,” it said. The notification will need to include evidence of agreement from the newly named administration to act as the notifying administration on behalf of the intergovernmental organization, it said.
Russia’s space agency has lost contact with its Express-AM4 satellite following its Thursday launch, and “by all appearances, has failed to reach the target geostationary orbit,” the Russian-owned ITAR-TASS news service reported. Problems with the upper stage of the Proton launch vehicle caused the problems and the “coordinates of the satellite are being ascertained,” ITAR-TASS said. The satellite includes C-, Ku-, Ka- and L-band capabilities and has a total of 63 transponders, said ITAR-TASS. The telecommunications satellite, launched on a Proton-M rocket from Kazakhstan, is hoped to be used for DTV in Russia, the Associated Press reported. The loss of the satellite would slow the planned transition to DTV, it reported. The $264.5 million satellite, built by EADS Astrium, was fully insured by Russian Ingosstrakh insurance company, Reuters reported.
The fixed satellite market continued to grow in 2010, but faces slower growth rates and “a more challenging business environment” for the next several years, said a study by Euroconsult. It said fixed satellite transponder demand grew 4.4 percent in 2010, and revenue reached $10.8 billion. U.S. military withdrawal from the Middle East and Afghanistan will slow satellite capacity demand, it said, and the launch of new satellites will result in lower average fill factor, potentially putting pressure on prices. TV remains the biggest growth factor for satellites, with more than 29,000 TV channels distributed by satellite worldwide, Euroconsult said. Capacity demand from TV grew more than 9 percent in 2010 in Latin America, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, it said. The number of HDTV channels distributed by satellite grew 42 percent to about 2,680 channels, excluding those in the U.S. Euroconsult predicted a quick rampup of high-throughput satellite capacity, particularly in Ka-band, growing to 450 Gbps in 2015 from 77 Gbps in 2010. It said the new capacity will stimulate demand for satellite telecom, including consumer broadband, enterprise networks, backhaul, military communications and video.
The demand for 3D TV programming hasn’t developed yet and has grown slower than expected, Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav said during the company’s Q2 earnings teleconference. “3D, candidly, has been slower than expected.” The market will be driven by the penetration of 3D TV sets into consumer homes and how quickly consumers adopt them, Zaslav said. “The good news for us is that we've gotten a lot of experience with it,” through Discovery’s joint venture with Sony and Imax, he said Thursday.
Billions of dollars are at stake in WRC-12 negotiations aimed at creating new jobs, driving economic growth and pushing forward emerging U.S. industries as global leaders, officials said in a briefing. Spectrum for mobile broadband, unmanned aircraft systems, wireless avionics intra-communications and a framework for post-shuttle era communications are some of the top U.S. objectives for the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) and beyond, officials said. The U.S. is heavily engaged in bilateral and regional talks to solidify support, they said.
Development of LTE equipment for the 2.3 GHz Wireless Communications Service band is now underway worldwide, with deployments likely soon in China, India and Russia, said a report the WCS Coalition filed this week at the FCC. “WiMAX in the 2.3 GHz band has been relegated to a ‘proprietary’ standard in that it does not have an evolving technology base or multiple vendors supporting interoperable equipment,” said the report by Conexus Technology Advisors. “LTE is the most viable 4G technology for WCS licensees to achieve economics of scale and produce a viable business model.” The coalition wants the FCC to change the rules for the band to accommodate LTE. Wireless Bureau staff had earlier asked the coalition for a more detailed analysis of problems in use of the band, which led to the report, said a letter from the coalition to Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman.
The top priority for EU space policy is the speedy launch of satellite navigation system Galileo and the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security program, government competitiveness ministers said Tuesday. They reaffirmed their “strong commitment” to Galileo and GMES because of the substantial economic and social benefits user-driven applications promise for Europe and its citizens. Both programs should continue to be funded under the EU budget, they said. Considering the vulnerability of space systems and the potential for their misuse, the European Commission and EU members should put in place adequate security measures specific to the satellite programs, the ministers said. They called for an effective space situation awareness capability to boost the safety of European space assets and future launches from space debris and weather phenomena. Officials also asked the EC to keep in mind the important role communications satellites play in fulfilling the digital agenda, and consider making sufficient spectrum available for European space systems, including the communications satellites. They also urged the EC to strengthen its “space dialogues” with the U.S. and Russia and explore similar talks with existing and emerging space powers such as China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, India and South Africa.
EU governments mostly agree with the European Commission’s proposed five-year spectrum policy plan but the “particularly difficult” subject area means more work is needed to reconcile differences among countries and between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, Hungarian Information and Communication Minister Zsolt Nyitrai said at a Friday Telecom Council meeting. Hungary, which currently holds the EU Presidency, has made every effort to accommodate the concerns raised by governments, but several issues will be left to the incoming Polish Presidency to try to resolve, he said. One of the chief questions is whether all, or most, EU members will be able to free up the 800 MHz “digital dividend” band by 2013, which the EC badly wants.