NETHERLANDS: New Skies Satellites the global satellite communications company, has announced a long-term agreement with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for value-added television contribution services over the new NSS-7 Atlantic Ocean Region satellite.
New Skies will enable the EBU, a group of 119 broadcasters from 79 countries, to digitally deliver contribution feeds from sporting and special events as well as breaking news stories in the United States to its member stations across Europe. In particular, it will link seamlessly EBU's Washington bureau to the Eurovision users' earth stations in Europe.
The service for the EBU will take advantage of the NSS-7 satellite and New Skies' Washington D.C. Mediaport. The EBU will co-locate digital transmission equipment in the recently enhanced facility, which also features an ultra-high speed OC-12 fiber link (622 Mbps) direct to a major Washington D.C. metro video hub, connecting all local access providers in the area. The EBU will route its digital video traffic through this connection to the Mediaport for uplink to the NSS-7 satellite and broadcast to points across Europe and the Middle East. The service will begin during the fourth quarter of this year.
NSS-7 was launched on 16 April, 2002 from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana and commenced commercial services on May 30, 2002. The satellite replaced both NSS-803 and NSS-K at 338.5 degrees east, combining the extensive television transmissions and Internet traffic from the two satellites to debut as a premier video and IP neighborhood in the Atlantic Ocean region. NSS-7, a Lockheed Martin A2100AX model spacecraft, boasts 36 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders and eleven high-powered coverage beams. The satellite is capable of broadcasting video, Internet and data traffic throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. With a blue-chip full-time customer lineup and occasional-use transmissions of breaking world news as well as prominent sporting events, NSS-7 broadcasts to thousands of antennas across its vast footprint.
Founded in 1950, the European Broadcasting Union is the largest professional association of national broadcasters in the world with 70 members and associate members in 51 countries of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East and 49 associate members in 29 countries further afield.
