SES has struck Ultra HD trial agreements with Marquette-Adams in Wisconsin, Buckeye Broadband in Ohio and Southeast Michigan, Service Electric Cable TV in Pennsylvania, and enTouch Systems in Texas. This means that it now has eight operators currently assessing a satellite-based Ultra HD solution aimed at accelerating 4K delivery to homes across America.

The first wave of trials kicked off this past summer with Cable America in Missouri, Golden West Telecommunications in South Dakota, MTC Cable in New York, and Sjoberg’s Cable TV in Minnesota.

To address the North American market, SES has seven channels hosted aboard two satellites (SES-1, SES-3) at the centre of the orbital arc, serving nearly 100 million homes.

The SES Ultra HD solution uses satellite delivery options with either managed IP multicast DOCSIS 3.0 streams or traditional digital QAM transport streams. With its pre-packaged Ultra HD platform, SES combines Ultra HD channels, 4K set top boxes and reception gear. The managed Ultra HD solution is delivered over dedicated bandwidth, which, says SES, provides a much higher quality viewer experience compared to current Internet-delivered 4K offerings susceptible to buffering and network congestion.

“Ultra HD TV sales and demand for 4K content are both reaching unprecedented levels, and SES is leveraging the scalability and reliability of satellite to accelerate the delivery of Ultra HD to homes throughout North America,” explained Steve Corda, vice president of business development in North America for SES. “SES has developed a fully-managed Ultra HD platform capable of quenching the increasingly insatiable appetite for Ultra HD.”

“Ultra HD is on the verge of becoming an exciting reality for our subscribers, who are buying new Ultra HD TVs in anticipation of the best viewing experience available today,” added Danny White, director of product management, enTouch Systems.