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iSAT Africa and Eutelsat Team to Offer Free-to-Air Digital Channels in Kenya and East Africa [Manufacturing Close - Up](Manufacturing Close - Up Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) iSAT Africa reported it has chosen to Team with Eutelsat Communications on free-to-air delivery of African and international digital channels in Kenya and across East Africa in order to bolster the move towards a fully digital broadcasting environment in the region. According to the companies, iSAT and Eutelsat will use the high- power African service area of the EUTELSAT 70B satellite to broadcast a platform of channels to digital headends and on a DTH basis to homes beyond range of terrestrial reception. The first channels were launched by iSAT on September 1. They include Family TV and K24 that are multiplexed in a DVB-S2 platform and uplinked from iSAT's teleport in Nairobi to Ku-band capacity on EUTELSAT 70B. iSAT Africa has also agreed terms with Eutelsat for use of C- band capacity on the EUTELSAT 3B satellite for contributing channels to the Nairobi teleport where they can be aggregated into the platform. Rakesh Kukreja, MD of iSAT Africa, commented: "We are delighted with our partnership with Eutelsat whereby iSAT provides complete technical platform and system integration for media houses and Eutelsat provides satellite capacity and video expertise. We envisage that media houses in Africa will see digital migration as an opportunity to expand across more territories and therefore increase viewership. This is a great opportunity for any media house to cover the East Africa community and more than 160 million Swahili- speaking people using a single uplink located in Africa. This will allow media houses to outsource technical service delivery and focus on their core business of content management. Eutelsat is a great company to work with as we received full support on both solution and technical fronts." Michel Azibert, Chief Commercial & Development Officer of Eutelsat, added: "Eutelsat's infrastructure has played a key role in digital transition in Europe and today, for example, enables over four million homes beyond range of terrestrial networks in France and Italy to benefit from quality free-to-view reception of a diverse range of channels. We are delighted that the reach and performance of EUTELSAT 70B meets the requirements of Wananchi, a highly experienced media company, and to have this new opportunity to demonstrate the contribution of satellites for achieving the transition to digital." iSAT Africa is part of the Wananchi Group and is focused on video solution and system integration in Africa. Eutelsat Communications is an operator of communications satellites. More information and complete details: http://www.isatafrica.com http://www.eutelsat.com ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |