The contracted capacity will enable Sky Cable to effectively roll out a nation-wide DTH satellite TV service across 251 cities and municipalities in the Philippine archipelago, complementing its existing cable offerings. The recently launched SES-9 is scheduled to enter service mid-year to provide incremental and replacement capacity at SES's prime neighbourhood of 108.2 degrees East which reaches 22 million homes.

Sky Cable will be drawing on SES's capabilities and global expertise of serving more than 40 DTH platforms worldwide hosted on SES’s comprehensive satellite network, to deliver high-quality content to homes across the Philippines. This includes broadcasting linear TV content to remote locations and islands that are underserved by terrestrial networks. Sky Cable currently offers cable TV services for 55 High Definition (HD) channels to 800,000 subscribers in 19 cities and municipalities in the Philippines.

“The geography of the Philippines presents a unique set of challenges for fibre or terrestrial connectivity. Our satellites are able to overcome these limitations and provide comprehensive and high-powered coverage over the entire archipelago including under-connected areas in the Philippines. We are glad to support Sky Cable as they use both ground and space infrastructure to expand their TV audience reach,” says Deepak Mathur, Senior Vice President Commercial, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at SES. “This latest contract on SES-9 shows the continued momentum of serving our prime DTH neighbourhoods on our largest satellite dedicated for Asia-Pacific.”

Antonio S Ventosa, COO of SkyCable, said, “We are pleased to tap SES’s global expertise and extensive satellite footprint as we venture into providing satellite TV services for our growing subscriber base. We are confident that with our partnership with SES, we will be able to deliver content seamlessly to potential new customers all across the country.”