Inmarsat today announced that Inmarsat-5 F1, the first in its fleet of three Global Xpress (GX) satellites, has successfully completed its orbital deployment stages on schedule.  Inmarsat and Boeing engineers, working from Inmarsat’s GX teleport in Nemea, Greece, are now beginning a month of comprehensive payload testing, in preparation for commencing live end-to-end testing of the high-speed, mobile broadband GX connectivity services, scheduled to start in March.

My previous column for Satellite Executive Briefing noted that I would be providing an update to the next event in the GVF-EMP Partnership Conference Portfolio, which takes place in London on 11th & 12th February. Connectivity 2014: Creating the New “New” Verticals – Air, Water, Surface & Rail (www.uk-emp.co.uk/emp-home/current-events/connectivity-2014/) is expected to be the first in a new series of the Portfolio, adding to the current

Space Tech Conference 2014 http://www.spacetechexpo.com will bring together key military personnel, government officials and private industry executives to discuss the pressing issues facing the space industry from April 1-3, 2014 in Long Beach, California.

The global installed base of TV-centric connected devices surpassed one billion units in 2013 and will exceed two billion by 2017, driven by smart TV, IP-enabled set top boxes, game consoles, Blu-ray players and low cost digital media adapters, according to the latest research from Futuresource Consulting.

Location Based Services (LBS)  market in the Asia Pacific region to grow at a CAGR of 32.98 percent over the period 2013-2018, according to a new report by Research and Markets. One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increasing adoption of location-enabled devices in China and Southeast Asian countries. The LBS market in the APAC region has also been witnessing the increasing demand for free LBS applications. However, the lack of knowledge about LBS among users could pose a challenge to the growth of this market.

CASBAA’s first event of 2014, "Phillippines in View" took place on Tuesday, January 21 at the Edsa Shangri-La in Manila. Featuring a high profile roster of influential speakers, this informative forum explored the issues molding the local broadcasting market today through a program of keynotes and panel discussions.

Informa Telecoms & Media today revealed its predictions and trends for 2014 for the telecoms and media sectors. Telecoms operator consolidation will be a recurring theme throughout 2014. In addition to in-market consolidation – Informa Telecoms & Media is seeing a slow but steady transition to three-operator mobile markets – we expect to see regional and global telecoms operator groups entering into discussions and potential deals.

SintecMedia announced a deal for the potential acquisition of Pilat Media and its merger into SintecMedia. The deal is worth approximately US$103 million. A large number of shareholders of Pilat Media have agreed to sell at the offered price and subsequently the board of Pilat Media decided to recommend the deal to all its other shareholders.

The 6th edition of IDATE’s M2M Market report, covering 2013-2017, reveals that a healthy growth rate has finally taken hold in this promising but, up until recently, underperforming market. This performance is being spurred by increased use within the main areas of application (automotive, consumer electronics and utilities) and is expected to accelerate even further over the next five years as M2M spreads to other sectors of activity.

Exhibitions India brings the 22nd edition of ‘Convergence India 2014’ to Pragati Maidan, New Delhi on January 21-23, 2014.  Themed as ‘Connecting India’, South Asia’s largest ICT forum will offer a range of conferences and an exhibition focusing on new-age technologies and business solutions.