EoW January 2009

T ransat lant ic Cable

As reported by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, the Telstar 11N, built by Space Systems/Loral for Loral Skynet (NewYork), will provide services from 39 high-power Ku-band transponders spread across four different geographic beams in each of North and Central America, Europe, Africa, and the maritime Atlantic Ocean Region.

In October, Motorola’s co-chief executive Sanjay Jha, who took over as head of the mobile phone division only in August, announced an overhaul of the division. The company is scrapping several software platforms in favour of three main systems, including the Google-developed Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. According to Ms Wong, Mr Jha cancelled a number of product launches scheduled for the first half of 2009. As a result, she wrote, “Motorola will face a challenging couple of quarters before its planned release of a Windows Mobile-powered smartphone and an Android phone in the second half of the year.” Total mobile phone shipments in the US reached 47.4 million in the third quarter of 2008, up 6% from a year earlier. Ms Joy, of Strategy Analytics, attributed the bump to wireless service providers and other distributors stocking up on inventory ahead of the holidays. In her view, the pace of growth would likely decline in the fourth quarter as American consumers cut back spending in their tough economy. Elsewhere in telecom . . . Tighter household budgets and attractive options for wireless service are causing Americans in greater numbers to relinquish their traditional landline phones in favour of cell phones. According to a JD Power and Associates survey released in October, some 27% of cell phone customers say their cellular service has replaced landline, which averages about $40 a month per line, for daily calling. Three out of five of these customers have given up their landline service altogether, while the rest retain but do not actively use their wired connections, the study found. As noted by Cox News Service (3 rd October), the shift to wireless has broad implications for both consumers and providers including AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc. Both companies have been deploying new broadband networks and wireless services even as they compete with cable companies for a shrinking pool of landline customers. Chief technology officer John Donovan of AT&T shared that company’s view that, while mobile service is its top priority, old landline networks still have a lot of life left in them. “With technology generally, the later you can deploy, the cheaper and more capable it is,” Mr Donovan told Cox. “So every year we spend billions of dollars rehabbing and upgrading our network. And every day that goes by where we do that, our network gets more capable and more and more future-proof.” The Russian Space Agency said on 31 ❈ ❈ st October that preparations had begun for the launch of a rocket with a US Telstar satellite on board. A Zenit-3SLB carrier rocket equipped with a DM-SLB booster was scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan at the end of December. “A preliminary assessment of the launch facilities at Baikonur was carried out this week in preparation for the launch of the Telstar 11N satellite,” the space agency said in a statement. The Zenit-3SLB is an upgraded three-stage version of the rocket used at Sea Launch’s floating platform in the Pacific Ocean.

Steel

Even before the New Year, American steel makers had begun to cut back production in the economic downturn US Steel (Pittsburgh) announced it was laying off 500 workers ❈ ❈ in the US and 175 in Canada in response to lower demand for steel. The cuts went into effect in the Pittsburgh area and at company plants in the South and Midwest. Also in mid-November, Beta Steel (Portage, Indiana) ❈ ❈ imposed the first of two temporary layoffs, and the entire mini-mill would be shut down mid-December through early January. The producer of hot-rolled bands operates a 700,000 tons-per-year electric arc furnace melt shop and a rolling mill with capacity of 1.1 million tpy. The company was purchased for $350 million on 31 st October by Novolipetsk Steel, Russia’s fourth-largest steel maker by output. Boeing, with troubles of its own, may aid some good customers inconvenienced by the global credit crunch Boeing Co (Chicago) reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with the union representing its white-collar engineers. The four-year contract agreement, which must be approved by a majority of the 21,000 members of the union, would avoid a second punishing strike at the plane maker’s plants in the Seattle area. A 58-day strike by its 27,000-member machinists’ union ended 2 nd November. Boeing also said it was pushing back the schedule on the cargo version of its 747 jumbo by up to nine months, a delay attributable at least in part to the diversion of engineering talent to the new 787 Dreamliner, itself about a year and a half behind schedule. The machinists’ work stoppage and supplier problems contributed to a 38% drop in Boeing’s third-quarter earnings to $695 million from the year-earlier $1.11 billion. Despite these difficulties, the company in October announced a handsome offer. As reported by the Chicago Tribune , Boeing CEO Jim McNerney told analysts that the global aviation leader was prepared to step in as banker for airline customers struggling to finance new aircraft in a period of frozen capital markets worldwide. (“Boeing Set to Lend a Hand – and Some Cash – to Strapped Customers,” 22 nd October) Aviation

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