Satellite operators Eutelsat and SES announced today that they have concluded a series of agreements including a comprehensive settlement concerning the right to operate at the 28.5 degrees East orbital position and long-term commercial as well as frequency coordination elements.

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.

The Radio Frequency Interference – End Users Initiative (RFI-EUI) and the Satellite Interference Reduction Group (IRG) today announced a merger, helping the two groups to better serve the industry and combat satellite interference together.
 

Discovery Communications and TF1 Group today announced Discovery would acquire a controlling interest in Eurosport International through an extension of their larger strategic partnership first announced in December 2012. The deal to increase Discovery’s interest from 20 to 51% accelerates the original agreement by nearly one year.

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.

Pace plc, a global developer of technologies and products for PayTV  and broadband service providers, today announces the unaudited update for the financial year  ended 31 December 2013 ahead of preliminary results to be announced on 4 March 2014.  Pace is updating its forecast of  full year results ahead of the Board’s previous guidance.  Full year revenues expected to be up 2.4% to US$ 2,460 m (2012: US$2,403.4  m). 

In my previous column  I previewed GVF High Throughput Satellites 2013: Game-Changer in Action - The London Roundtable. I am very pleased to report that several participants in this latest program in the GVF-EMP Conference Partnership portfolio described the event as “A very successful conference, by any standard.” Here, in this contribution to the final edition of 2013, I wish to provide you, the reader, with the means to access at least some of the flavor of the series of great dialogs which took place in London on 5th and 6th December 2013.