Since Intelsat and Inmarsat were privatized, consumers have benefited...

Since Intelsat and Inmarsat were privatized, consumers have benefited from robust services and the satellite market is competitive, the companies said in comments to the FCC on The Open-Market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications (ORBIT) Act report. Inmarsat’s forthcoming Ka-band network, Global Xpress, is the result of a $1.2 billion investment into three Ka-band satellites, Inmarsat said (http://bit.ly/1iG8rIr). Inmarsat has partnered with several satellite industry companies, like iDirect and Cobham/SeaTel, to help deploy Global Xpress, it said: “Inmarsat’s land portfolio has and will continue to grow in the low data rate services.” Intelsat continues to invest heavily “to keep its satellite fleet technologically current,” the satellite operator said in comments (http://bit.ly/1dW1rY8). It has nine satellites in the design or build stages, including several next-generation high-throughput Intelsat Epic satellites, it said. The goals of the ORBIT Act have been fully achieved and the reporting requirement “now is an unnecessary burden on limited commission resources,” it said. The comments will be reflected in the FCC’s annual report to Congress (CD Feb 13 p17).