Arabsat and Morgan for Information and Communications Technology (MICT) signed a contract where Arabsat will provide Morgan with Satellite capacities on Arabsat-5C at the orbital position 20° East, with full coverage to the African continent, in addition to Arabsat usual coverage to the Middle East and large parts of Asia and Europe.

Eng. Khalid bin Ahmed Balkheyour President & CEO of Arabsat expressed his happiness to sign this contract with Morgan, stressing Arabsat full support and commitment to provide the best services for them.

Social media, big data analytics, OTT, multi-platform screening and CYOD (Choose Your Own Device) have been cited in various industry reports as some of the key trends to watch in 2014. These trends are fuelled by a steep increase in consumption of data and entertainment on mobile devices, with mobile data traffic in Asia Pacific expected to exceed the rest of the world by 2017.  

CASBAA’s annual India Forum will take place on Wednesday, March 5, 2014 at the Shangri-La New Delhi where an international and local roster of high-level speakers will explore the Indian cable and broadcasting markets in the context of the global economy and challenging regulatory regimes.

The ABS-2 satellite was successfully launched  at 6:30  p.m. Kourou time today. The satellite was launched on an Ariane ECA launch vehicle from the Guiana Space Center.

Ericsson today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Massachusetts-based Azuki Systems, Inc., a provider of TV Anywhere delivery platforms for service providers, content owners and broadcasters.

According to the new market research report entitled "C4ISR Market (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, Land Systems, Airborne Systems and Naval Systems) Forecasts 2014 - 2019", the C4ISR market is estimated to be US$ 83.13 billion in 2014 and is expected to register a CAGR of 2.28% to reach US$ 93.04 billion by 2019.

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.