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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Valueman who wrote (6495)	7/16/1999 9:21:00 AM
From: John Stichnoth	Respond to of 10852

Thanks. Makes sense. And both companies are probably needed, to allay the studios' fears of losing control of their distribution (mentioned in the article).

To: Valueman who wrote (6495)	7/16/1999 9:55:00 AM
From: JMD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

Valueman--what a great new turn in the LOR discussion: We're going to Disneyland! What's your take on the SBC deal just announced with DirectTV? Hughes is getting all the DTH business or am I just morose this AM before the French Roast kicks in? best, mike doyle

To: Valueman who wrote (6495)	7/19/1999 2:33:00 PM
From: Jeff Vayda	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

Vman: Loral told LM Atlas that T7 would not be coming and would go to Ariane. LM said, "Fine, we will keep your $40 mill deposit." "Hey I guess we need to talk about this." Loral replied. My guess is the money will be put in credit for future launches. LM cant afford to be giving money back, their launch business has been dragging them down for awhile and the street slammed the stock a couple months back when the heads told them the situation was worse than they originally thought. Perhaps Senator Rorenbacher's bill will help: (thanks Aerospace Daily) Rohrabacher introduces bill ordering quick export approval for satellites REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-Calif.) has introduced legislation mandating expedited export approval for "commercial satellites, satellite technologies, their components and systems to NATO allies, major non-NATO allies and other friendly countries." Also covered in the amendment to the fiscal 2000 State Dept. authorization is data needed for launch failure and insurance purposes; bid information for foreign procurements, and information on the reexport of unimproved materials. State's Office of Defense Trade Controls gets $11 million in earmarked funds to do the work. Rohrabacher, chair of the House Science space and aeronautics subcommittee, would specifically prohibit expedited approval for exports to China. Copyright 1999 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Jeff Vayda

To: Valueman who wrote (6495)	7/26/1999 11:50:00 AM
From: Jeff Vayda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

Vman, you have probably seen this already so I'll post it for everyone else. Jeff Vayda FAILURES, DELAYS HAVE TIGHTENED U.S. SATELLITE TRANSPONDER CAPACITY Failures and delays have led to a tightening of transponder capacity in the U.S. market. In the U.S. market, full-time leases take up about 85%-95% of total satellite capacity. This leaves little capacity for occasional-use services, especially when there is a breaking news event and every news organization is vying for space. Capacity can become especially tight when a major event occurs, like NATO troops moving into Kosovo. CNN leases quite a bit of occasional-use capacity for overseas transmission to affiliates. NBC avoids the occasional-use capacity problem by leasing a lot of its own space on domestic birds- 18 Kuband transponders on GE Americom GE-1 and PanAmSat's SBS 4, "We don't (buy occasional transponder capacity) that often." The U.S. market will continue to be tight for about three to five years, but will gradually loosen up as operators launch new birds and digital compression technology advances. Digital compression is already helping alleviate some of the capacity problems. Satellite operators, cable networks and broadcasters have made major inroads into digital delivery, and most resellers have fully digital operations centers and are able to provide end-to-end digital distribution services. In an industry where economics are a textbook model of supply and demand, some say digital compression is the only reason occasional-use prices have been kept to a reasonable level. C-band capacity costs about $650 to $800 per hour and Ku-band costs about $750 to $900 per hour. The cable industry has been particularly aggressive in the development of digital networks, reducing the amount of transponder space needed to facilitate the growing number of cable network start-ups. "There is a slight oversupply of cable transponders and a softening of prices in the full-time market." Most news operations have begun instituting digital satellite newsgathering systems to better use their full-time Ku-band capacity. "On a typical day there's never enough space," says CBS, "If the news weren't migrating to Ku digital it would be more of a problem. Everybody wants to be live all the time." CNN adds, "We've been doing entirely digital feeds from the Balkans since the (Kosovo) story started. I can't remember the last time we booked a transportable earth station that wasn't equipped with a digital encoder. It's absolutely standard in Europe." While digital compression can help alleviate the capacity crunch and stabilize prices recent satellite failures of the past year may have caused customer confidence in the industry to wane. "I believe satellite disruptions and failure to complete launches has damaged the reputation for reliability which satellites have enjoyed for years. Considering the tight capacity market and new concerns about satellite reliability it's not surprising that fiber networks are starting to give satellites a run for their money in applications where only point to point transmissions are needed Fox and NBC were among several broadcasters that used fiber to backhaul some feeds for coverage from Kosovo European satellites were used to move traffic from war zones back to broadcast headquarters in London, and the signals were then routed to New York bureaus via Teleglobe's transatlantic fiber, "There's actually much more fiber capacity in the Atlantic Ocean and soon the Pacific Ocean than the equivalent number of satellite transponders by far. Any point-to-point service between major cities will migrate to fiber optics, primarily ATM-based fiber optics for video. The quality is better and on point-to-point services. The economics are very strong to use fiber optic-based services." Teleglobe's transatlantic fiber services are priced per 10-minute segments. It costs about $160 for the first ten minutes with $12.50 for each additional 10 minute segment. Fiber can also complement satellite. "We combine the two for access out of far-flung, remote regions." Combinations of fiber and satellite will become more popular as more fiber is put in the ground. "Not everything can be facilitated on fiber and not everything can be facilitated by satellite. I think for the purposes of disseminating and gathering information people are driving to a more symbiotic relationship where (satellite and fiber) will be mutually beneficial even more so than they currently are." [Broadcasting & Cable June 21, 1999]