- Business — Office des Postes et Telecommunications of French Polynesia (OPT) has signed a multi-transponder contract for capacity on Intelsat’s new satellite, IS-18. The contract with Intelsat, which spans the 15-year expected life of the satellite, expands the services currently provided to OPT on Intelsat’s IS-701 satellite. Intelsat designed the Ku-band beam on IS-18 to provide coverage of all of French Polynesia. The Ku-band beam’s broader footprint also reaches the Cook Islands. OPT expects to use Ku-band capacity on the IS-18 satellite for its domestic DTH service and to offer VSAT and Internet services to its outer islands in the South Pacific.
- Acquisition — Numerex Corp. has acquired Ublip Inc., a privately-held machine-to-machine (M2M) software and services company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The Ublip infrastructure and software enable the rapid creation of web-based M2M applications. When coupled with existing Numerex network technology and infrastructure, these apps will provide a resilient and reliable hosting environment for M2M solutions. Numerex's strategy of simplifying the deployment process is an important key to sustainable growth in the industry. Typically, application developers must identify hardware (radio modules, servers), understand and select wireless networks, build communications software, and the front-end web application. Ublip 'Foundation' technology and software simplifies and 'jumpstarts' the application development process, and has the capacity to support several different devices, wireless networks, and protocols.
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Moving On Up — John Howe, who is currently Thales U.K.'s Vice-Chairman, will be retiring at the end of January 2009 after 8 years in that position. As a result of this retirement, Victor Chavez has been appointed to the role of Deputy CEO for Thales U..K in addition to his current responsibilities for Business Development, Sales and Marketing. Victor will report directly to Alex Dorrian, CEO Thales U.K.. Sam Keayes is appointed Vice President - External Affairs and Strategy for Thales U.K., expanding on his currently role as U.K. Strategy Director. John Howe will continue to support the company, taking up the position of Non-Executive Director of the U.K. Advisory Board in January 2009, reporting to Lord Roger Freeman, Chairman.
Satnews Daily
October 13th, 2008
ORBITZ