Alastair Bovim, managing director, and Rash Jhanjee, director of enterprise, Global Xpress Program, for Inmarsat Solutions, talk to telecoms.com at AfricaCom 2012 in Cape Town.

Mobile operators are now facing a plethora of challenges to maintain the high levels of profitability they are accustomed to. Issues including increased regulation, heightened competition from the traditional mobile value chain and new competitors from the Internet world are starting to seriously challenge operators.

US satellite pay TV broadcaster Dish networks has applied for the trademark ‘Ollo’ as a brand name for its planned wireless LTE-Advanced based services.

Eutelsat Communications announced at the beginning of June that its KA-SAT High Throughput Satellite had gone live, bringing broadband speeds of up to 10Mbps to homes across Europe.

It’s not every day that you come across a new carrier staffed by senior executives who are promising to “reset the industry”. But this is the bold claim made for US newcomer Lightsquared by the firm’s executive vice president of ecosystem development and satellite systems, Martin Harriman. Lightsquared aims to redefine the operator business model altogether, as Harriman will be explaining during his presentation at this year’s LTE World Summit in May.

Google-backed satellite operator O3b Networks, which stands for “the Other 3 billion”, is set to launch services in 2013 after this week securing its final round of funding. The company has raised a total of $1.2bn from a group of investors and banks.

Fixed satellite operator Intelsat this week announced the successful launch of its latest bit of kit, the shiny new Intelsat 15 satellite (IS-15), which will replace the ageing 709 satellite.