Eutelsat's W1 Bird Goes Online

With its coverage of southern Africa, W1 is the third satellite to take Eutelsat into the Southern Hemisphere.

Paris - Oct. 18, 2000
Eutelsat, one of the world's leading satellite operators, announces that the W1 satellite, launched on September 6 by Ariane V132, has gone into full commercial service at 10 degrees East. Traffic was successfully transferred to the new satellite from Eutelsat II-F4 in the night of October 14-15 and Eutelsat II-F4 has now been moved away from 10 degrees East.

W1's 28 Ku-band transponders provide coverage of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East via a fixed Widebeam, and coverage of southern Africa via a steerable spotbeam. The commercial interest in the new satellite fully matches market trends: Internet backbone connections, corporate networks including Intranets and Extranets, automatic file transfer, TV programme exchanges and TV distribution links.

With its coverage of southern Africa, W1 is the third satellite to take Eutelsat into the Southern Hemisphere, supporting the strategy of international expansion that began with W2 in October 1998, and went a step further with W4 that was launched in May this year. In addition to enabling interconnectivity between Europe and southern Africa, W1 can be used for communications within southern Africa.

With the launch and entry into service of W1 Eutelsat's satellite resource today consists of 18 Ku-band satellites. Positioned in the orbital arc from 12.5 degrees West to 48 degrees East they provide reach of Europe, Africa, large parts of Asia and connectivity with the Americas. Five new satellites are in construction and due for launch by first quarter 2002.

SPACEMART

Eutelsat Teams with Kingston and Teleports For TransAtlantic

London - July 11, 2000
Kingston TLI, the international satellite and broadcast arm of the Kingston Communications Group, Eutelsat and ATC TELEPORTS, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of American Tower Corporation are partnering to offer a new range of cost-effective occasional-use services between Europe and North America using Eutelsat's Atlantic Gate satellite capacity at 12.5 degrees West.

SPACE.WIRE