Georgia is set to welcome a new DTH platform after a local media firm called JSC Global Contact Consulting secured a multi-year capacity deal with Eutelsat.
Called Global TV, the operator will use capacity from the Eutelsat-36B satellite to provide TV…
Georgia is set to welcome a new DTH platform after a local media firm called JSC Global Contact Consulting secured a multi-year capacity deal with Eutelsat.
Called Global TV, the operator will use capacity from the Eutelsat-36B satellite to provide TV services in April, initially with four Free-to-Air channels and later including both Georgian and international broadcasts.
JSC Global said it plans to install several thousand dishes across Georgia over the next two years to accelerate access to the new platform.
Zurab Bazlidze, the company’s director general, said: “The Eutelsat-36B satellite quickly emerged as the platform of choice for our new venture. It combines the power we need for DTH broadcasting with exceptional coverage of our chosen regions.
“We can launch our new platform confident that the service and support provided by Eutelsat will accelerate the success of this new broadcasting initiative in Georgia.”
MagtiCom, Georgia’s largest telecoms operator, launched the country’s first domestic DTH firm in January 2012, called MagtiSat. It partnered with Eutelsat rival SES, using its Astra 1G satellite.
New DTH platform for crowded Romania
Meanwhile, across the Black Sea, a local report in Romania has claimed the country could soon see what would be its fourth DTH platform.
Citing sources, ZF reported that local telco Orange Romania had signed a contract with SES to launch a satellite TV service by early May.
Jean Francois Fallaher, the CEO of Orange Romania, has been cited recently saying the company was considering launching a satellite TV service.
SES and Orange Romania declined to comment on the speculation.
The new DTH service would compete with platforms owned by Romtelecom, UPC and RCS&RDS, which sold its Croatian satellite TV unit to Telekom Austria in March.
It would come amid a spate of satellite TV launches. Recently, Norwegian satellite operator Telenor Satellite Broadcasting signed a transmission agreement with Bulgarian venture Neterra, which plans to offer other operators in Bulgaria access to the transponders for DTH services.
The activity is not confined to Europe, with Telefonica and America Movil both gunning to add satellite TV to their telecoms bouquets in Uruguay, after a court overturned the latter’s government ordered ban on providing such services in the country.
