Hispasat, Intelsat expand IFC deal
May 12, 2023
Satellite operators Hispasat and Intelsat have reached an agreement to expand and extend the agreement reached in 2019 to lease the capacity on Hispasat’s latest satellite, Amazonas Nexus.
Specifically, this new partnership includes long-term leasing of the entire satellite capacity available over the United States and Brazil, as well as a significant part of the capacity of the Amazonas Nexus over the North Atlantic corridor. Thanks to this, Intelsat will offer inflight connectivity services in these areas with a high volume of air traffic, as well as corporate and cellular backhaul services.
“Our long and successful collaboration with Hispasat in providing connectivity services on commercial flights, together with the excellent coverage and flexibility in orbit from the Amazonas Nexus, has led us to sign this agreement which strategically reinforces our offering in the American and Brazilian commercial aviation, mobility and network service markets,” commented Adam Troy, VP of Network Partnerships at Intelsat.
Ignacio Sanchis, CCO of Hispasat, thanked Intelsat for the trust shown by “this long-term agreement, which confirms our commitment to the Amazonas Nexus in the connectivity market in mobility environments and strengthens our position in the Americas”.
The Amazonas Nexus is a high throughput satellite, and the innovative architecture will serve to replace the Amazonas 2 in the 61 degrees West orbital position. The new satellite, which was launched on February 6th from Cape Canaveral, will have a payload specifically dedicated to connectivity in mobility environments (planes and ships), in addition to other applications such as corporate communications and cellular backhaul rollouts.
Furthermore, it will a launch a state-of-the-art Digital Transparent Processor, a technological innovation that will substantially increase the satellite’s flexibility and make it easier to adapt to the changes that may occur in demand.
Together with the extended long-term agreement with Intelsat, the Amazonas Nexus project includes two other strategic customers during its useful life: Tusass, the telecommunications operator from Greenland, and Artel, which will provide the Pathfinder 2 payload on board this satellite to the American Space Forces. In total, Hispasat has already reached long-term agreements to lease more than 60 per cent of the capacity of the Amazonas Nexus, a notable milestone in a market that is trending towards short-term agreements. This highlights the growth in the demand for satellite services in mobility and corporate services in the Americas. In fact, the demand of capacity of inflight connectivity services is expected to multiply twelve-fold1 in the period between 2021-2031.