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PanAmSat Lauches PAS-1R Satellite

PanAmSat Corporation has announced that the AS-1R satellite, the company’s eighth Atlantic Ocean Region spacecraft, has successfully lifted off at 8:07 p.m. Eastern time (1:07 a.m. GMT) from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.

PAS-1R will replace the PAS-1 Atlantic Ocean Region satellite, the first international communications satellite ever launched by a commercial company. With PAS-1’s launch in June 1988, PanAmSat broke a global satellite monopoly and paved the way for today’s multibillion-dollar international satellite communications industry. PanAmSat is now an industry leader with hundreds of marquee customers and 22 spacecraft, the world’s largest commercial geostationary satellite network.

PAS-1R, which is located at 45 degrees west longitude, is the largest and most powerful commercial geostationary satellite ever launched. The spacecraft will employ its 72 transponders to offer expanded and enhanced video and data broadcasting as well as broadband Internet services throughout the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe and Africa.

PAS-1R, a Boeing 702 spacecraft built by Boeing Satellite Systems Inc., employs a communications payload consisting of 36 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders, each supplying 36 MHz of bandwidth. The PAS-1R deployment was PanAmSat’s 17th Ariane launch and the company’s first voyage aboard the Ariane 5 rocket.

R. Douglas Kahn, PanAmSat’s president and chief executive officer, said: ‘The pioneering launch of PAS-1 gave rise to a thriving new commercial international satellite services industry, with current annual revenues of nearly 10 billion dollars and significant projected growth in the coming years. As PAS-1R orbits earth, we are poised to lead that growth as we continue to introduce enhanced technology to meet market demand for exciting new digital video, data and broadband Internet services.

‘From 45 degrees west longitude, PAS-1R will be instrumental in the support of current and future PanAmSat Internet initiatives in Europe, Africa and Latin America such as SPOTbytes DVB and NET-36. The spacecraft’s extensive coverage, high-power and advanced Ku-band payload make it an ideal platform for the delivery of these new broadband services. PAS-1R will also offer our C-band customers additional capacity, flexibility and service options for the delivery of premium video distribution services throughout the Atlantic Ocean Region.’

PAS-1R will provide comprehensive coverage of Latin America, with high-powered beams focused on key areas throughout the continent. This enables PanAmSat to offer its new SPOTbytes DVB service to customers throughout the entire region. SPOTbytes DVB offers Latin American Internet service providers and telecommunications companies flexible, cost-efficient and high-speed access to the U.S. Internet backbone over a versatile DVB platform.

The satellite also will play a key role in the deployment of PanAmSat’s NET-36 IP Broadcast Network in Europe and Latin America. NET-36 delivers a content owner’s broadband streaming media entertainment directly to edge servers located at broadband last-mile provider locations, bypassing 95 percent of terrestrial Internet congestion. The network will employ the PAS-1R satellite to enable a content owner to deliver its Internet entertainment to broadband-enabled users throughout Europe and Latin America with unmatched quality and fidelity.

Once operational, PAS-1R will have a diverse customer lineup in Latin America, showcasing its ability to deliver a broad range of services throughout the region for video, direct-to-home, telecommunications and Internet customers. Among the customer lineup are ImpSat, Cisneros Television Group, CTC Mundo, Telefónica Data Colombia, Citibank, Reuters, Zona Franca Montevideo, Latinet, Suratel, Vitacom and DirecTV Latin America.

PAS-1R highlights:

* More than twice the capacity of the original PAS-1 satellite, offering a total of more than 2,500 MHz of capacity.

* PanAmSat’s eighth Atlantic Ocean Region satellite and ninth serving Latin America, representing an investment of more than $2 billion in advanced satellite services for the region.

* PanAmSat’s fourth satellite offering coverage of Africa.

* PanAmSat’s seventh satellite serving Europe.

* New C-band capacity for Europe and Africa, offering C-band connectivity between Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Africa, in addition to the Americas.

* More than three times as much power per C-band transponder than on PAS-1

* Three times the Ku-band capacity of PAS-1, offering Ku-band connectivity between Europe and Africa as well as Latin America for the delivery of high-speed data and broadband Internet services.

* More than seven times as much power per Ku-band transponder than on PAS-1

* The fifth satellite in PanAmSat’s seven-satellite launch campaign that will expand the company’s global network to 24 spacecraft by mid-2001.

* PanAmSat’s second Boeing 702 model spacecraft.

* PanAmSat’s 17th Ariane launch and first voyage aboard the Ariane 5 rocket.

For more information on PanAmSat, visit the company’s web site at http://www.panamsat.com
or
Jeffery Bothwell
Email: jbothwell@PanAmSat.com>