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Bengaluru, Jan 17: India’s latest communication satellite GSAT-30 was successfully launched from the Spaceport in French Guiana during the early hours on Friday.

In a press release, ISRO, has stated that the launch vehicle 'Ariane-5 VA-251' was blasted off from Kourou Launch Base, French Ginana at 0230 hours, carrying India’s GSA-30 and EUTELSAT KONNECT for Eutelasat, as per schedule.

The Ariane 5 upper stage in an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.

With a lift-off mass of 3,357 kg, GSAT-30 will provide continuity to operational services on some of the in-orbit satellites.

GSAT-30 derives its heritage from ISRO’s earlier INSAT/GSAT satellite series and will replace INSAT-4A in orbit.

“GSAT-30 has a unique configuration of providing flexible frequency segments and flexible coverage. The satellite will provide communication services to Indian mainland and islands through Ku-band and wide coverage covering Gulf countries, a large number of Asian countries and Australia through C-band," ISRO Chairman Dr K Sivan said.

Dr Sivan also said that “GSAT-30 will provide DTH Television Services, connectivity to VSATs for ATM, Stock-exchange, Television uplinking and teleport Services, Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) and e-governance applications. The satellite will also be used for bulk data transfer for a host of emerging telecommunication applications.”

ISRO’s Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka took over the command and control of GSAT-30 immediately after its separation from the launch vehicle. Preliminary health checks of the satellite revealed its normal health.

In the days ahead, orbit-raising maneuvers will be performed to place the satellite in Geostationary Orbit (36,000 km above the equator) by using its onboard propulsion system.

During the final stages of its orbit raising operations, the two solar arrays and the antenna reflectors of GSAT-30 will be deployed. Following this, the satellite will be put in its final orbital configuration.

The satellite will be operational after the successful completion of all in-orbit tests.

Mumbai, Jul 3: In yet another move to keep Chinese technologies companies at bay, the Centre has cancelled the 4G upgradation tender for BSNL as it has decided to come up with fresh specifications for the upgrade process, sources said.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is likely to issue a fresh tender in the next two weeks.

People in the know said that the fresh tender may not allow Chinese companies to participate and that the new tenders that will be floated in the next two weeks will emphasise on Make in India.

As the border tussle with China escalated last month and around 20 soldiers lost their lives, the government had last month asked both BSNL and MTNL not to use equipment of Chinese makers in their upgrading process to 4G facilities.

Huawei and ZTE are the major Chinese telecom equipment makers working with Indian telecom companies and they would be the hardest hit by the decision.

The impact may be felt in terms of the much-awaited 5G trials in the country. After much deliberation, the Centre last December decided to allow Huawei to take part in the 5G trials.

The cancellation of tender for BSNL's 4G upgradation comes after the Centre on Monday banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, WeChat and UC Browser.

A statement by the Ministry of Electronics and IT said that the decision was taken since "there is credible information that these apps are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order".

Due to impacts of COVID-19, shipments of total mobile phones are forecast to decline 14.6% in 2020, while smartphone shipments will achieve a slightly slower decline of 13.7 % year over year to total 1.3 billion units this year, according to a Gartner forecast on Tuesday.

"While users have increased the use of their mobile phones to communicate with colleagues, work partners, friends and families during lockdowns, reduced disposable income will result in fewer consumers upgrading their phones," Ranjit Atwal, Senior Research Director at Gartner, said in a statement.

"As a result, phone lifetimes will extend from 2.5 years in 2018 to 2.7 years in 2020," said Atwal.

In 2020, affordable 5G phones were expected to be the catalyst to increase phone replacements, but now it is unlikely to be the case.

5G phones are now forecast to represent only 11% of total mobile phone shipments in 2020.

"The delayed delivery of some 5G flagship phones is an ongoing issue," said Annette Zimmermann, Research Vice President at Gartner.

"Moreover, the lack of 5G geographical coverage along with the increasing cost of the 5G phone contract will impact the choice of a 5G phone."

Overall, spending on 5G phones will be impacted in most regions apart from China, where continued investment in 5G infrastructure is expected, allowing providers in China to effectively market 5G phones.

The combined global shipments PCs, tablets and mobile phones are on pace to decline 13.6% in 2020, according to the forecast.

PC shipments are expected to decline 10.5% this year. Shipments of notebooks, tablets and Chromebooks are forecast to decline slower than the PC market overall in 2020.

"The forecasted decline in the PC market in particular could have been much worse," said Atwal.

"However, government lockdowns due to COVID-19 forced businesses and schools to enable millions of people to work from home and increase spending on new notebooks, Chromebooks and tablets for those workers. Education and government establishments also increased spending on those devices to facilitate e-learning."

Gartner said that 48 per cent of employees will likely work remotely at least part of the time after the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 30 % pre-pandemic.

Overall, the work from home trend will make IT departments shift to more notebooks, tablets and Chrome devices for work.

"This trend combined with businesses required to create flexible business continuity plans will make business notebooks displace desk based PCs through 2021 and 2022," said Atwal.