Brazil grants landing rights to ABS and Yahsat

Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) and Yahsat have won permission to expand their services into Brazil as both satellite operators look to tap into the growth potential of Latin America’s largest market. Yahsat is also making headway in increasing its coverage in Africa.

Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) and Yahsat have won permission to expand their services into Brazil as both satellite operators look to tap into the growth potential of Latin America’s largest market.

SpaceX placed ABS-3A at 3W in March last year and the all-electric entered commercial service at the end of August, providing 720 MHz in C-band and 216 MHz in Ku-band over Latin America.

ABS said that now Brazilian communications regulator Anatel had granted it landing rights, the private equity-owned outfit would be able to put its spectrum to work, offering capacity for mobile backhaul, rural broadband, video, oil and gas, and mobility applications.

Tom Choi, CEO of ABS, said: “We recognise the importance of Latin America and ABS-3A will satisfy the increasing demand for bandwidth for this market.”

“We are looking forward to serving such a vibrant and expanding area which is one of the key emergent markets requiring greater satellite capacity to support its fast growing economies.”

Anatel has also awarded a licence to Abu Dhabi-backed Yahsat to operate in Brazil through Al Yah 3, which is set to enter commercial service in early 2017 and will cover 19 new markets for the operator – 18 in Africa, plus Brazil.

Arianespace is set to launch Al Yah 3 to 20oW at the end of the year, which will be able to provide Ka-band-powered satellite broadband and backhaul services covering 190 million – or 95% – of Brazil’s population.

Yahsat sees Brazil as a key growth market as demand for broadband is increasing in the country, while its geography remains inhospitable to those looking to build-out terrestrial internet infrastructure. It has opened an office in Rio de Janeiro which it is in the process of staffing with a team of local experts.

Satellite operators have been flocking to Latin American countries in recent years as they look to emerging markets for growth. Both Hispasat and Telesat have birds in the pipeline as well, Amazonas 5 and Telstar 19 Vantage, prompting oversupply concerns. The operators, along with Yahsat, won rights from Anatel in an orbital slot sale in May 2015 that raised US$58m.  

Yahsat’s CEO Masood Sharif Mahmood commented: “Today, Yahsat is the seventh largest satellite operator, in terms of revenue, and we have witnessed continued success through the delivery of our innovative satellite broadband products and services, from our home here in the UAE to several regions across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

“We look forward to providing our services in Brazil to address the shortage of reliable internet connectivity.”

Mahmood also thanked the UAE government for its backing of Yahsat’s international expansion. Abu Dhabi’s investment arm Mubadala has held conversations with banks about strategic options for a number of its assets, including a possible listing of its wholly owned subsidiary Yahsat, but there are no substantial plans at this stage.

Yahsat enters MoU as it eyes African expansion

Further to the Brazilian rights, Yahsat also announced this week that it is exploring possibilities to expand in Africa.

The Emirati operator already partners with French satcoms provider IEC Telecom Group in eight African countries. The two companies have now signed an MoU to explore the possibility of Yahsat and IEC Telecom providing capacity to a total of 26 African markets once Al Yah 3 goes live, which will dramatically increase the area where its satellite broadband product YahClick is available.

IEC Telecom’s CEO Erwan Emilian said the company was keen to add the 18 additional countries to expand its presence in the Ka-band VSAT marketplace.

“With Yahsat, we would be able to continue meeting our goal of providing our enterprise, government, humanitarian, oil and gas, mining, education and health customers in Africa, with enhanced Ka-band HTS connectivity backed by an unmatched network reliability and consolidated by our added-value services,” Emilian said.

Yahsat’s chief commercial officer David Murphy said: “We will look at potential ways to build on our long and valued history with IEC Telecom, which dates back to the pre-launch of our second satellite, Y1B in 2012.”

“Building on our existing partnership would ensure YahClick delivers on its promise to have an unmatched service area and provides constant connectivity to aid the socio-economic development of the region.”