Broadcasting Companies

EchoStar

Englewood, United States commercial

EchoStar Corporation (Nasdaq: SATS) is an American satellite technology and services company operating Hughes Network Systems — the world's largest satellite broadband provider with over 1 million residential and business subscribers in North America. Founded in 1980 by Charlie Ergen, EchoStar provides satellite internet services under the HughesNet brand via its EchoStar XVII and EchoStar XIX Ka-band satellites. EchoStar and Dish Network (also founded by Ergen) were sister companies that merged in January 2024, reuniting the satellite television and internet operations under the EchoStar corporate umbrella. In 2025 EchoStar agreed to sell spectrum licences to AT&T (about $23 billion) and SpaceX (about $17 billion plus a $2.6 billion AWS-3 add-on), and in August 2026 its Hughes subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 while the parent company continued outside bankruptcy. Hughes Network Systems' ground technology is also licensed internationally for broadband satellite networks.

SiriusXM Holdings

New York, United States commercial

SiriusXM is America's leading audio entertainment company providing satellite radio and online radio services. Formed from the 2008 merger of Sirius and XM Satellite Radio, the company operates a constellation of satellites to deliver commercial-free music, sports, news, and talk programming to over 30 million subscribers across North America. The company also owns Pandora, the largest audio streaming platform in the United States.

Es'hailSat

Doha, Qatar government

Es'hailSat (Qatar Satellite Company) is a Doha-based government-owned satellite operator founded in 2010 under the Qatar Investment Authority, established to give Qatar sovereign GEO satellite communications infrastructure independent of reliance on foreign operators for national broadcasting, government connectivity, and strategic communications. The company operates two GEO satellites: Es'hail-1 (launched November 2013, Arianespace Ariane 5), providing Ku-band broadcasting and broadband services to the MENA region with coverage from Morocco to Pakistan; and Es'hail-2 (launched November 2018, SpaceX Falcon 9), Qatar's flagship satellite in a dual-Ku and Ka-band configuration covering MENA, Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa. Es'hail-2 carries a unique payload that has made it globally famous in the amateur radio community: the first geostationary amateur radio transponder — a 250 mW narrowband linear transponder and a wideband digital transponder on amateur radio frequencies, enabling radio amateurs worldwide to make contacts via a GEO satellite using modest antenna setups. This amateur transponder, operated in partnership with the Qatar Amateur Radio Society (QARS), has been designated QO-100 (Qatar OSCAR 100) by the amateur satellite community. Es'hailSat serves Qatar's domestic satellite television and broadband needs, provides capacity to regional broadcasters in Arabic, and supplies government secure communications for Qatar's ministries and diplomatic missions. As Qatar hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Es'hailSat provided satellite broadcasting infrastructure for international coverage across the MENA broadcasting footprint. The company competes with Arabsat and Eutelsat for MENA region broadcast and broadband satellite capacity.

Arqiva is a British communications-infrastructure company whose satellite division operates teleport and uplink facilities that broadcasters and satellite operators buy time on rather than build their own. The operating company, Arqiva Limited, was incorporated in April 1990; the Arqiva brand itself dates to May 2005, when Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group renamed the broadcast-infrastructure business it had acquired from NTL. Arqiva's two principal teleports, Crawley Court (near Winchester, Hampshire, where the company is registered) and Chalfont Grove (Buckinghamshire), both hold Tier-4 accreditation — the highest rating — from the World Teleport Association, re-certified in 2026. The company provides satellite uplink and broadcast-distribution services; for example, it supplied the satellite uplink used to distribute beIN Sports' coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup via the Es'hailSat-1 satellite. Beyond satellite services, Arqiva's larger business operates roughly 1,450 terrestrial radio and television transmission sites across the UK, smart-meter communications infrastructure, and, through its Inmedia Communications and former BT Satellite Broadcast Services acquisitions, satellite broadcast operations extending into the United States, France, Italy and the Netherlands. The company is privately held by a consortium comprising Digital 9 Infrastructure (48%), Macquarie Group (25%) and IFM Investors (14.8%). Arqiva's satellite teleport business is a small part of a much larger broadcast-infrastructure group, but it is one of Europe's higher-accreditation commercial teleport operators.