Pilfered from Skyreport today. Interesting comment attributed to our CEO, "Loral is aiming for 15 of the satellite capacity available around the globe." Any ideas where we are now?
Loral, Hughes Ready For
Broadband
Loral Space and Communications
Chairman Bernard Schwartz,
speaking before Bear Stearns'
Satellite Conference in New York
City, said bandwidth in today's
information-hungry world is
"tremendous," and feeding that
demand will be satellites.
Loral is aiming for 15 percent of
the satellite capacity available
around the globe. To achieve part
of that, the company will launch a
satellite a month - on average - for
its Globalstar and Skynet services
during 1999, Schwartz said.
Globalstar, the Loral-backed
mobile satellite phone company,
should debut service in the third
quarter, he said. Globalstar also is
looking to raise an additional
$600 million in debt to fund
operations.
Schwartz also boasted about
Cyberstar, joking that VSAT
operators "should be put out of
business" by the broadband
offering. He concluded, however,
that "VSAT's will continue to grow,
and there will always be a need"
for data and corporate
communications delivered via the
terminals.
Charles Noski, president and
chief operating officer at Hughes
Electronics, also promoted the
company's future broadband
offerings, including Spaceway,
and said to watch for more news
on those efforts in the near future.
He commented on the possibility
that Hughes' DirecTV unit would
make a deal with an Internet
service provider. "It makes sense
to use," he said, "but we won't
comment on things of this nature.
Stay tuned."
On DirecTV's proposed
acquisition of PrimeStar, Noski
said "we are more confident" the
service will convert around 1.7
million subscribers of the
medium-power service to
DirecTV's high-power service.
That despite the "creative
poaching attempts of our
competition," he said.
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