Satellite companies SES and Intelsat complete their merger
The Luxembourg-based satellite company SES has now completed its acquisition of the European-based satellite company Intelsat, giving the combined company 120 active satellites in a variety of low and high Earth orbits.
With a world-class network including approximately 90 geostationary (GEO), nearly 30 medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites, strategic access to low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, and an extensive ground network, SES can now deliver connectivity solutions utilising complementary spectrum bands including C-, Ku-, Ka-, Military Ka-, X-band, and Ultra High Frequency. The expanded capabilities of the combined company will enable it to deliver premium-quality services and tailored solutions to its customers. The company’s assets and networks, once fully integrated, will put SES in a strong competitive position to better serve the evolving needs of its customers including governments, aviation, maritime, and media across the globe.
Both companies are long established, with Intelsat initially founded in the mid-1960s as a consortium of 23 nations aimed at launching the first geosynchronous communications satellites over the Atlantic and Pacific serving most of the Old World and linked to the New.
The merger is an attempt by both companies to compete with the new low-orbit constellations of SpaceX, Amazon, and from China.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Luxembourg-based satellite company SES has now completed its acquisition of the European-based satellite company Intelsat, giving the combined company 120 active satellites in a variety of low and high Earth orbits.
With a world-class network including approximately 90 geostationary (GEO), nearly 30 medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites, strategic access to low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, and an extensive ground network, SES can now deliver connectivity solutions utilising complementary spectrum bands including C-, Ku-, Ka-, Military Ka-, X-band, and Ultra High Frequency. The expanded capabilities of the combined company will enable it to deliver premium-quality services and tailored solutions to its customers. The company’s assets and networks, once fully integrated, will put SES in a strong competitive position to better serve the evolving needs of its customers including governments, aviation, maritime, and media across the globe.
Both companies are long established, with Intelsat initially founded in the mid-1960s as a consortium of 23 nations aimed at launching the first geosynchronous communications satellites over the Atlantic and Pacific serving most of the Old World and linked to the New.
The merger is an attempt by both companies to compete with the new low-orbit constellations of SpaceX, Amazon, and from China.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
”The Luxembourg-based satellite company SES has now completed its acquisition of the European-based satellite company Intelsat…”
Intelsat was based in the United States, not Europe. So yet again America allows a significant chunk of its aerospace industry to be bought by a foreign government.
mkent: Intelsat however was always focused more on serving customers in Europe and Asia, with some satellites linking to the U.S. This merger I think makes some sense based on customer base.
It is also likely necessary for both companies to survive. And even so, they might not.
”Intelsat however was always focused more on serving customers in Europe and Asia…”
Under the Intelsat brand, perhaps, but it has long been the owner of PanAmSat and Hughes Communication’s Galaxy constellation, the two being the backbone of American cable television.
Which highlights my larger point. With this acquisition almost *all* of America’s private GEO comsat constellations — Intelsat, AT&T, Western Union, Satellite Business Systems, Hughes Communications, GE Americom, and PanAmSat — are owned by two foreign crown corporations: SES (Luxembourg) and TeleSat (Canada). Throw in the previously American O3b MEO constellation as well. Only Viasat has escaped.
In addition, the previously American OneWeb LEO constellation is now owned by Eutelsat, in which a controlling interest is held by the French government.
”It is also likely necessary for both companies to survive. And even so, they might not.”
There is absolutely *no* chance that the Luxembourgan government will allow SES to fail. Like Airbus they will get government capital and government subsidies until their few remaining American competitors stumble. And then they’ll buy them too.
I don’t like it either mkent.
America’s worst enemies were always of the domestic brand who allowed off-shoring.
Wearing an American Flag pin on an Armani suit paid for by mass lay-offs does not make one a patriot.
mkent,
The cable TV model of a slate of programming broadcast on a set schedule is rapidly losing ground to the on-demand ala carte streaming model of entertainment media distribution. GEO comsats were an excellent fit with the former, but a lousy fit with the latter. US cable TV companies are, more and more, ISPs offering broadband Internet than they are TV programming distributors. If the Europeans want to buy more obsolete US assets, I say let them. Europeans have a long history of trying to pretend business-as-formerly-usual can be made to continue indefinitely via government fiat. Single-use launch vehicles are another relevant example.