© 2010 Rapid TV News
Chris Forrester ©RapidTVNews | 08-09-2009
Satellite operator SES has come firmly down against building a dedicated craft for satellite-delivered broadband in Europe. SES’ president and CEO Romain Bausch is happy to supply around 45,000 current broadband customers and to build on that number, but says the operator will not invest in new dedicated broadband satellite capacity. Arch-rival Eutelsat will launch a new Ka-Band satellite committed to broadband towards the end of next year.
Bausch, speaking to the Financial Times, said: “I personally believe the rollout of terrestrial broadband will be such that you can’t demonstrate the viability of satellite in the long term.” Bausch argues that European suppliers of terrestrial brodband, whether by cable, DSL or mobile, are now dominant. He also believes that European (and US) subsidies will continue to favour terrestrial broadband deployment.
Instead, Bausch said SES would continue to offer broadband capacity on its satellites as part of the hybrid (Ku and Ka-Band) craft that it would continue to build.
Bausch confirmed that SES was examining whether to make a bid for one or both of the ProtoStar satellites operating over Asia.
© Rapid TV News 2009
