Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, has asked twenty one EU countries to urgently introduce all the necessary legal measures to allow the pan-EU deployment of mobile satellite services. Potential uses for these services include high-speed internet, mobile television and emergency communications.

The European Parliament and the EU's Council of Ministers agreed around three years ago that Mobile Satellite Services should be deployed in all EU Member States by May 2011.

Eutelsat Communications successfully launched its KA-SAT satellite on Boxing Day 2010. The 6.1 tonne satellite will offer internet connectivity for more than one million homes at speeds comparable to ADSL.

O3b Networks, which counts Google amongst its shareholders, says it’s now ready to start building its satellite internet service having raised a total of $1.2 billion from a group of investors and banks.

The satellites are intended to deliver low latency, fibre-quality internet connectivity for developing markets.

Satellite navigation company Garmin has warned mobile phone users about the 'hidden' costs of using smartphone sat-nav services that download maps over the mobile internet. They've calculated that users can end up with a phone bill more expensive than the cost of the fuel used for their journey.

Satellite phone service Iridium has announced plans for 81 satellites that'll form its next-generation mobile phone service. It already supports more than 359,000 subscribers on its existing sat-phone network. The new service, called Iridium NEXT, was first revealed in 2007. It'll have 72 satellites in space and an additional nine spares on the ground.

This new announcement has confirmed the cost of the project - approximately $2.9 billion - and also reveals that the satellites will be built by Thales Alenia Space. They're expected to be launched from early 2015.