Nov 30, 2008, post by Artur Ślesik
BusinessCom introduces iDirect Evolution X3 based satellite Internet service on Arabsat BADR-6 satellite, C-Band beam. This makes BusinessCom to be one of the first companies in the world to offer Evolution X3 based satellite services to the African continent.
The new satellite Internet service is available in various flavours from the Economical 128/64 to Dedicated 4096/512 circuits with a complete sub-$3,500 remote C-Band terminal equipment.
more > bcsatellite.net
Nov 18, 2008, post by Satellite News
Intelsat, Ltd., the world’s leading provider of fixed satellite services, announced that Sonema, a provider of leading telecommunication services in Europe and Africa, expanded its current agreement with Intelsat for contracted satellite capacity, which will increase Sonema’s enterprise services offerings. Sonema, a company that has been developing telecommunications services for more than two decades, uses Intelsat’s capacity to provide satellite communication transmissions to businesses, such as financial institutions, in some of the most isolated regions of Africa.
Under this new multi-year contract, Sonema will use capacity on Intelsat’s IS-904 satellite located at 60º East, and renew its capacity contract on the Intelsat IS-1R satellite, located at 45º West. The satellite-enabled transmissions within Sonema’s telecommunications network will deliver critical services such as voice, Internet connectivity, video conferencing and financial transactions, to approximately 300 sites for 25 of the most established banks in sub-Saharan Africa.
“We are focused on developing new markets and providing the most modern telecommunications technology to developing areas of Africa,” said Gilles Datrier, CEO of Sonema. “The Intelsat network provides us a robust platform for expanding our offerings, and Intelsat’s technical expertise supports our team in all our efforts to achieve our growth objectives.”
“In developing regions, access to resilient communication technologies has been identified as a top-line objective for companies seeking to expand their offerings and become more competitive within the sectors they serve,” said Kurt Riegelman, Intelsat’s Senior Vice President, Global Sales. “By leveraging the flexibility and high quality of our global satellite fleet and ground infrastructure, enterprise service providers such as Sonema can establish international and regional networks with ease and speed.”
Intelsat is exhibiting at AfricaCom 2008, the annual African event for mobile, fixed, wireless and satellite communications professionals, at booth #19/20. The event is being held at the Cape Town Convention Centre in Cape Town, South Africa on 18-19 November 2008.
About Sonema
Established in 1985, Monaco-based Sonema has been delivering telecommunication services throughout 400 satellite earth stations located in more than 36 countries throughout Africa and Europe. The company offers several international gateways (in Monaco, Antibes, South of France and the Paris region) with access to all the major networks. The 24h/7 support centre located in Monaco provides permanent supervision and reports on all customers’ networks. For more information, visit www.sonema.com.
About Intelsat
Intelsat is the leading provider of fixed satellite services (FSS) worldwide. For more than 40 years, Intelsat has been delivering information and entertainment for many of the world’s leading media and network companies, multinational corporations, Internet service providers and governmental agencies. Intelsat’s satellite, teleport and fiber infrastructure is unmatched in the industry, setting the standard for advanced transmissions of video, data and voice services. With the globalization of content, broadband, telecom, HD and mobile communications fueling next-generation growth, the ever-expanding universe of satellite communications is the cornerstone of today’s Intelsat. Real-time, advanced communications with people anywhere in the world is closer, by far.
Contacts
Nick Mitsis
Intelsat
nick.mitsis@intelsat.com
+1 202 944 7044
Lydia Manchado
Sonema
lydia.manchado@sonema.com
+377 93 15 10 34
Nov 13, 2008, post by Satellite News
The U.S. military, with help from Seattle startup Delve Networks, has launched a video-sharing Web site for troops, their families and supporters, a year and a half after restricting access to YouTube and other video sites. TS2 Satellite Technologies has implemented new acceleration services for all military customers who need share videos on the TroopTube over personal or government satellite systems.
TroopTube, as the new site is called, lets people register as members of one of the branches of the armed forces, family, civilian Defense Department employees or supporters. Members can upload personal videos from anywhere with an Internet connection, but a Pentagon employee screens each for taste, copyright violations and national security issues.
Part of Delve’s work was to build speedy tools for approving and sorting incoming videos. Its technology also crunches video files into several sizes and automatically plays the one that best suits viewers’ Internet connection speeds.
But the startup’s real forte is making sure searches on the site turn up the best video results. Delve’s system turns a video’s sound into a text transcript. It pares unimportant words like “this” and “that,” then compares what’s left against a massive database of words commonly uttered in proximity to each other, collected from crawling hundreds of millions of Web pages.
The result: Even if speech recognition software trips on the one word someone is searching for, there’s a good chance Delve can still deliver relevant results.
In May 2007, the Defense Department banned employees and soldiers from accessing sites including YouTube and MySpace, citing security and bandwidth issues. Delve Chief Executive Alex Castro called TroopTube a “retention tool” aimed at a generation of soldiers who bring laptops to the front lines.
“A lot of people are excited in the company to be doing something for the people who make sacrifices,” said Castro, his eyes tearing. “We’re proud of this.”
http://www.trooptube.tv/
