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Eutelsat statement
on operations at 28.5° East
16 October 2012
Eutelsat has filed a
request for arbitration against SES with the International Chamber of
Commerce in Paris. This request is grounded on a breach by SES of the
Intersystem Coordination Agreement signed with Eutelsat in 1999, whose
object is to coordinate Eutelsat's and SES's respective operations at
several orbital positions, including 28.2 degrees East and 28.5 degrees
East.
The purpose of the
Intersystem Coordination Agreement was notably to allow for clear
broadcasting skies over Europe in the best interests of tens of millions of
satellite homes.
Eutelsat's position is
that the agreement between SES and Media Broadcast, signed seven years ago,
and only disclosed by SES in its release of 1 October 2012, violates the
terms agreed in the 1999 Intersystem Coordination Agreement, specifically
SES's commitment to respect Eutelsat's operations at 28.5 degrees East.
The said release from - 1st October 2012 – SES (Euronext Paris and
Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) announced today that its new ASTRA 2F
satellite has been successfully launched on Friday, 28 September, on board
an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. This is SES' 36th successful
launch on Ariane.
ASTRA 2F was built by Astrium in Toulouse using a Eurostar E3000 platform
and carries Ku- and Ka-band payloads for the delivery of high-performance
Direct-to-Home (DTH) and next generation broadband services. It is the first
of a three satellite investment programme (ASTRA 2E, 2F and 2G), that
provides replacement and growth capacity for the UK and Ireland at the
28.2/28.5 degrees East neighbourhood. The new satellites in this
neighbourhood will, as of October 2013, also use additional frequency
spectrum for which the right of use was granted to SES by Media Broadcast
pursuant to an agreement entered into in 2005. The new ASTRA 2F spacecraft
also provides Ku-band capacity for pan-European services and for Sub-Saharan
Africa. Its Ka-band payload will allow SES Broadband Services to support
download speeds of up to 20 Mps.
"The successful launch of ASTRA 2F is part of our fleet replacement and
expansion programme," said Romain Bausch, CEO of SES. "ASTRA 2F will provide
seamless replacement capacity for our UK customers like BSkyB, the BBC, ITV,
Channel 4 and Channel 5, and will allow us to operate additional capacity at
28.2/28.5 degrees East on SES satellites. This orbital neighbourhood today
serves close to 13 million DTH homes in the UK and Ireland. We would like to
thank our long-standing partners Astrium and Arianespace for this mission
success."
ASTRA 2F had a launch mass of 6 tons, generates 13 kW of power, and has a
design life of 15 years. It is the fifth Eurostar satellite in the SES
fleet. The new spacecraft will be brought into commercial service in the
next few weeks following the completion of the extensive in-orbit testing
programme.
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