Intelsat, the world's leading provider of fixed satellite services, has confirmed that South African direct-to-home (DTH) television operator, MultiChoice, has signed a long-term, multi-transponder agreement for satellite capacity. The agreement extends and expands MultiChoice's existing contract on the Intelsat 7 satellite at 68.5º E to the follow-on satellite, Intelsat 20 (IS-20), which is slated to be launched in early 2012.

MultiChoice and Intelsat collaborated on the design of the South African Ku-band payload for IS-20, which will optimise the signal reception power for MultiChoice's more than 2.6 million DStv customers throughout South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, DTH/Satellite