Start-up company Kymeta Corporation announced today that it has successfully closed a US$ 50 million Series C financing to accelerate the company’s growth plans. Kymeta, a privately held technology company, designs and manufactures satellite communication antennas and systems. Existing Kymeta investors including Bill Gates, Lux Capital and Liberty Global were joined in the financing by Osage University Partners and The Kresge Foundation.

Three top pay-TV companies have emerged as the remaining serious contenders for online video service Hulu in a bidding completed on July 5 according to media reports.

The largest satellite company in the U.S., DirecTV, made a bid for the online video service, while Time Warner Cable offered to acquire a stake. AT&T, which operates the U-verse pay TV-service, also submitted a joint bid with Chernin Group, producer of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" film and TV's "New Girl" as well as an investor in startups such as Tumblr and Flipboard.

 Nav Canada has invested an additional US$40 million in Aireon LLC, a joint venture with Iridium Communications Inc., increasing its ownership of Aireon to 18.7 percent on a fully diluted basis.

Aireon will be using the hosted payload space on Iridium NEXT, Iridium's second-generation satellite constellation, to deliver global aircraft surveillance through Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) receivers on the satellites.

Nearly one-third of US Telco TV households are expected to access multiscreen or TV Everywhere services by the end of 2013 – the vast majority of which already use advanced interactive features like remote programming a DVR, according to ABI Research. Cable is close behind due to its early lead, but the growth rate for these services is slower because of the greater diversity of cable households and services (not all service providers offer TVE).

As the rate of economic growth accelerates and household incomes rise in Latin America, operators are expected to expand their multiplay and bundled offerings and increase efforts to upsell current customers to multi-service packages, according to a new report from Pyramid Research.

CPI International, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary Communications & Power Industries LLC (CPI) have acquired MCL, Inc., a manufacturer of power amplifier products and systems for the satellite communications market and a wholly owned subsidiary of MITEQ, Inc.

CPI provides microwave, radio frequency (RF), power and control solutions for critical defense, communications, medical and other applications. MITEQ manufactures high-performance RF microwave components and satellite communications (satcom) products.

O3b’s first four satellites were successfully launched aboard the Arianespace Soyuz launch vehicle on Tuesday marking the start of telecommunications and Internet services over Asia, Africa, South America, Australia and the Middle East that combine the global reach of satellite coverage with the speed of a fiber-optic network. 

NSR's just released Wireless Backhaul via Satellite, 7th Edition report finds the industry at the cusp of an evolutionary step.

Based on forecasts for 97 countries, global pay TV revenues [subscription fees and on-demand movies and TV episodes] will climb to $203 billion in 2018, up by $19 billion on 2012. According to the Digital TV World Revenue Forecasts report the fast growth years for the sector are over, with annual growth hovering at below 2% from 2015. Growth in 2013 will be 3.2%.

The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) today  released its 2013 State of the Satellite Industry Report, showing a 7% growth in  world satellite industry revenues in 2012, up from 5% growth in 2011. Globally, 2012 revenues for the satellite industry totaled $189.5 billion, up from $177.3 billion  the previous year. All four industry sectors grew, led by satellite services, the  traditional driver for the industry. Both satellite manufacturing and launch services  saw significant revenue increases, and satellite ground equipment revenues also  continued to expand.