Satellite Internet Blog

Congress recently started investigating FCC boss Kevin Martin, sending him a letter (pdf) last month demanding a wide variety of documentation from the agency. Martin’s tendency to rush meetings, leak information, pick on the cable industry and his support for the elimination of media consolidation laws have put the FCC boss under fire from all fronts, and both parties, for various reasons. The Washington Post has obtained a memo saying Martin will soon be forced to defend himself before a hearing, which suggests the inquiry may have dug up dirt:

The memo to Dingell and Stupak said the investigation is ongoing and proposed holding hearings on the findings in June. According to the memo, more than 30 current and former FCC employees were interviewed, along with telecommunications industry representatives and private citizens. The memo was the first indication that the investigation, launched in December, has turned up material to support complaints against Martin.

Of course this could also just be a lot of smoke and little fire. Martin’s in a tough popularity spot, having annoyed Democrats, Republicans, FCC employees, consumer advocates and companies like Comcast — all for various reasons. About the only group he hasn’t fully annoyed are the lobbyists at AT&T and Verizon, who’ve seen good fortune under his watch.

Keen followers of BT’s 21CN project will know that today is the day that Wholesale Broadband Connect launches. The new service from BT Wholesale aims to bring their range of ADSL products up to speed with the LLU services of their competitors. It also introduces a range of QoS (Quality of Service) options that could be utilised for new broadband products (such as streaming video). We’ve covered the technical features of the new service extensively already.

HughesNet, the global leader in providing broadband satellite networks and solutions, today announced that Orion Satellite Systems of Australia has purchased and commissioned a state-of-the-art DVB-S2/IPoS with Adaptive Coding Modulation (ACM) satellite system from Hughes to provide broadband Internet access service to remote areas in Australia. Orion Satellite Systems is one of the registered providers of broadband satellite services under the Australian Broadband Guarantee (ABG) program.

Hughes Network Systems (HughesNet), the global leader in broadband satellite networks and services and wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: HUGH), today announced that it successfully activated the first HughesNet® consumer subscriber for broadband Internet service utilizing its SPACEWAY™ 3 satellite on April 3rd, 2008.

“With this significant milestone, our SPACEWAY 3 satellite has officially commenced carrying revenue-bearing traffic, making Hughes a fully integrated service provider,” said Pradman Kaul, president and CEO of Hughes. “We are excited to begin delivering HughesNet broadband services over the world’s first commercial satellite with on-board switching to our rapidly growing base of consumer, SMB, enterprise, and government customers throughout North America .”