SES moves SES-3 to Asia
February 1, 2012
By Chris Forrester
SES has relocated its powerful SES-3 satellite from serving North America to Asia, to better serve a fast-growing DTH market.
The SES-3 satellite is being relocated to 108.2° East in order to provide coverage of the Middle East and South Asia regions including India, where SES says it is experiencing growing customer demand. The drift began in mid-December 2011 and the satellite is expected to arrive at its new orbital location on February 6, 2012. SES-3 is a very young satellite as it was just launched in July of 2011. Once reaching 108.2° East, the planned coverage is capable of supporting such applications as video, voice, data, and end-to-end communications networks.
Romain Bausch, President and CEO of SES, stated: “With a fleet of 49 spacecraft in orbit around the globe, SES has the operational flexibility to swiftly respond to shifting customer demand by re-deploying in-orbit capacity without affecting existing services.”
“We are very pleased with today’s ruling and look forward to putting the case to a jury,” Cablevision said in a statement. Dish has not commented.
Sanford Bernstein’s cable and satellite analyst Craig Moffett, in a report, described the ruling “a clear negative for Dish Network, and significantly strengthens the hands of AMC and Cablevision, either in court or in any potential settlement.”