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SES and EchoStar link on Mexican market
Chris Forrester ©RapidTVNews | 21-03-2010
Just as the important Satellite 2010 show was winding down SES and EchoStar announced they would use an SES associate company in Mexico to aggressively start selling capacity on 48 transponders, via 3 satellites.
The agreement wholly sidesteps EchoStar’s earlier plan to buy three Mexican satellites from SatMex. That deal is now dead in the water, and the new agreement – now officially licensed by Mexico’s government (which bizarrely is a ‘golden’ shareholder in SatMex) – sees SES use its locally-backed business Sistemas Satelitales de Mexico to re-sell capacity on SES-owned AMC-15 (105 deg W) and AMC-16 (85 deg W).
In other words EchoStar will now be competing directly against troubled SatMex.
The third satellite in the SES/EchoStar arsenal is QuetzSat-1, a craft, due to be launched next year into the 77 deg W slot. EchoStar is already contracted to use QuetzSat. “EchoStar is well positioned to leverage its satellite operations and uplink expertise in the US to expand its fixed satellite services throughout Mexico, including the delivery of satellite Internet services to rural communities,” EchoStar Satellite Services President Dean Olmstead said in a March 19 comment.
© Rapid TV News 2010
