With the teleport and MSS satellite service provider markets doing well, we wish to offer readers of SatMagazine some additional focus on this crucial SATCOM segment. We are also going to take a look at the satellite market in general, thanks to our highly regarded subject-matter experts.

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Astrium Services’ Toulouse teleport, operated by the Company’s subsidiary London Satellite Exchange, will be handling commercial communication services to Africa via Eutelsat’s W2A satellite. This new teleport opened last year and their SATCOM services include telephony, notably Virtual Private Network (VPN) secure services. Eutelsat’s W2A satellite entered services in May of this year and provides Ku-band capacity across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, as well as C-band capacity that extends from South America across Africa and Europe.

In mid-May, Eutelsat’s W2A satellite entered full commercial service of its Ku- and C-band services at the 10 degrees East orbital slot. This required service transfers from the W1 satellite to W2A, and the Company’s teleport came into critical play. Eutelsat’s Rambouillet teleport facility worked closely with all of the Eutelsat client via the Control Center to make certain the transfer was as seamless as possible. Clients that were already operating in the Ku-band experienced full continuity for their services, and Eutelsat now also has additional headroom for new customer expansion and coverage extensions at this key orbital location. The W1 satellite will offer operations from a repositioning to the 4 degrees East slot and a name change is also imminent — EUROBIRD 4A.

BT in Latin America now offers IP trunking services for business based in Manaus and other rural areas of northern Brazil via its teleport and Internet access point in São Paulo. This was made possible when the company expanded from 92 to 104 MHz of C-band capacity aboard SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES’ NSS-10 satellite. BT also tapped a portion of the satellite bandwidth to support customer single channel per carrier (SCPC) and distance learning services throughout Brazil.

Bandwidth... constant pressure for companies to acquire and offer more... Expand Networks is moving swiftly ahead to ensure such pressure can be alleviated by working with Level 421. In fact, Expand’s new partnership with Level 421, a global satellite broadband communication teleport operator, will find the Company’s WAN Optimization technology bringing relief into play. Level 421 uses more than 38 geostationary satellites across the globe, which receive content from four teleports, including Level 421’s own teleport in Ulm, Germany. With the Expand intelligent compression algorithms technology, Level 421 will be able to optimize bandwidth.

Intelsat is refreshing its satellite fleet that serves the Asia-Pacific region as well as also investing additional resources to their ground network infrastructure for this area of the world. An upgrade at their Paumalu Teleport in Hawai’i will result in improved fiber density. Upgraded antennas facilities will expand accessibility and redundancy for Pacific Ocean satellites, with media customers receiving enhanced services. Additionally, Intelsat’s GlobalConnex Network Broadband Managed services will be expanded, with hubs being added at KT Corporation’s teleport facilities in South Korea. Also signing on with Intelsat is ABS-CBNi, who has now signed a multi-year contract expansion with the Company. ABS-CBNi will use capacity on Intelsat’s Galaxy 19 satellite, located at 97 degrees West, to offer its clients increased regional programming in North America via its fully-owned and operated San Francisco International Gateway teleport. Intelsat’s Galaxy 19 satellite, which hosts the largest ethnic video platform in North America distributing to nearly 180 international channels, is located within Intelsat’s premier Galaxy neighborhood.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract from DigitalGlobe Inc. to provide a remote ground station solution to an international customer to enable support for the WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites. This contract is the fifth international ground station order to-date that MDA has received from DigitalGlobe and MDA will provide a solution capable of programming, receiving, and processing imagery and data from those satellites. As prime contractor, MDA is responsible for developing, integrating and installing their solution at the customer’s site by early 2010.

MTN Satellite Services and ERZIA are going to be building a new teleport in Santander, North Spain. This new facility will initiate operations by the end of 2009 and will offer commercial X-band teleport services through two antennas pointing to XTAR-EUR and XTAR-LANT satellites, operating at geosynchronous slots 60 degrees West to 65 degrees East, covering a region ranging from Western Australia to North America, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Uplinks and downlinks from both of these satellites will be supported. C- and Ku-band teleport ops will be added to the current MTN global and terrestrial network, along with point-of-presence and a 24x7 NOC in Santander. ERZIA will be able to improve mobile and fixed VSAT services in Spain and southern Europe.

CyberJaya, Malaysia, is the location of the MEASAT Teleport and Broadcast Center, and this operation will handle the needs of the just-launched MEASAT-3a satellite. Located at the orbital slot at 91.5 degrees East, the new satellite offers a 15 year life expectancy and will support DTH, broadcasting, and telecommunication services. Full commercial operations are expected by the close of July.

Teleports require a variety of hardware and software solutions to ensure viable, effective operations. To that end, last month Newtec made the announcement that Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) is going to be working with them to optimize their point-to-point satellite services transmissions via Newtec’s DVB-S2 technology. ABS customers will be able to transport live video content directly from their studios to ABS gateway teleports, efficiently and reliably. These contribution feeds will then be multiplexed, encrypted, and uplinked to full transponder MCPC platforms on the ABS-1 satellite for payTV distribution and for DTH broadcasting. The Newtec high order DVB-S2 modulation solution is comprised of their Azimuth broadcast satellite monitor, the AZ110, and the AZ910 demodulator.

With RAMTelecom’s acquisition by OmniGlobe Networks becoming finalized last month, the broadband data and voice business communications services for enterprises in the oil and gas, mining, and forestry sectors as well as government agencies will be formed into a new broadband communications division. Joining the former RAMTelecom services group will be OmniGlobe’s WiMAX and broadband operations, with all services based in and operating from Ottawa, Canada, with teleport facilities in Ottawa, Montreal, and a future site in Western Canada. The former president and CEO of RAMTelecom, Mr. Gilles R. Desmarais, is now the North American vice president of sales and marketing for both divisions. The division’s MSS and FSS services provide complete coverage of North America.

The National Geographic Wild programming will now be reaching Romania, thanks to the INTV Teleport in Prague. Spacecom, the operator of the AMOS satellite fleet, was the recipient of this contract, which will find the programming heading into the teleport via the AMOS-3 satellite. Spacecom will provide the satellite capacity and encryption services with its Viaccess conditional access system. AMOS-3 is located at 4 degrees West and serves DTH and other TV platforms in Europe and the Middle East.

You read earlier about the SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES work with BT and their teleport services — well, the Company has also signed a multiyear agreement with Teleport Access Services, Inc., for the distribution of 50 Chinese TV channels to customers in Taiwan via the NSS-11 satellite. Three transponders will be used. This satellites overs Ku-band coverage of China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, South Asia and portions of the Middle East.

By the way, the World Teleport Association offers a complete list of global teleports at...

http://www.worldteleport.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=274

Your time would be worthwhile in visiting the WTA website for a full listing of available teleports — there are also URLs to some of the teleport websites. Select the graphic below for further WTA information.

Hartley Lesser, Editorial Director