Kingdom of Bahrain

NEWS
EUTELSAT 117 West B now in commercial service
Eutelsat Communications has announced
that its EUTELSAT 117 West B satellite has
entered into full commercial service and
is now ready to support customers across
Latin America.
Commercialised by the Eutelsat Americas
affiliate, EUTELSAT 117 West B is the
second all-electric satellite in Eutelsat’s
fleet. It is equipped with 48 Ku-band
transponders (36 MHz equivalent)
connected to four beams providing
premium coverage of Mexico, Central
America and the Caribbean, the Andean
region and the Southern Cone. Eutelsat’s
new satellite complements EUTELSAT 117
West A, launched in 2013, to create
a multi-satellite neighbourhood at 117°
West, which is already used by Millicom’s
Tigo Star, Stargroup and Televisa. It will
also provide key services to telecom
operators and government service
providers in Latin America.
EUTELSAT 117 West B also features
a new-generation WAAS (Wide Area
Augmentation System) payload operated
by Raytheon as prime contractor for the
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA),
which will go live in 2018. Developed
for the civil aviation community, the
WAAS payload is designed to receive
signals from ground stations that
verify signal accuracy and rebroadcast
the information to GPS users, including
airline cockpits, the most demanding of
civil GPS applications. It will increase GPS
signal accuracy from 10 metres to 1-2
metres, thereby enhancing aviation safety
for users in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico
and the continental United States including
Alaska.
Eutelsat appoints Sandrine Téran
as new Group Chief Financial Officer
Eutelsat has announces the appointmend
Sandrine Téran as Group Chief Financial
Officer and member of the Executive
Committee.
Sandrine Téran was formerly Managing
Director of Louis Dreyfus Holding (based in
the Netherlands) and has occupied other
key executive positions in the Louis Dreyfus
Group during the past eight years, notably
Global Head of tax and Corporate Secretary,
and subsequently Global CFO of Louis
Dreyfus Company. From 2000 to 2008 she
was head of taxation, corporate finance
and internal audit at Eutelsat, contributing
to significant structural changes including
the privatisation in 2001 and the IPO in
2005. She began her career at Ipsen as risk
manager in charge of tax and insurance
before joining Euro Disney where she was
Head of tax. Sandrine is a finance and tax
graduate from Paris Dauphine University.
Commenting on the appointment,
Rodolphe Belmer, Eutelsat’s Chief Executive
Officer, said:“Sandrine’s significant
expertise in a wide-range of financial
functions and experience in international
business will further strengthen our financial
leadership. I am delighted to welcome her
to Eutelsat and to our executive team.”
NovelSat to support Telefónica’s 4G service in Antarctica
Telefónica Móviles Argentina (Movistar)
recently launched the Antarctica’s first
4G LTE mobile network, supported by
NovelSat NS3000 Professional High-Data
Rate Satellite Modems. At Marambio Base,
a permanent Argentine research facility in
Antarctic territory, the most remote region
on the planet, the only viable method of
data communication is through a satellite
network. To meet the unique challenges of
Antarctica, Telefónica choose to run with
NovelSat modems and NovelSat NS4,
the 4th generation satellite transmission
waveform from NovelSat, a world leader in
satellite transmission technology.
In addition to increased data capacity to
support 4G service for the 70 permanent
residents and 5,000 annual visitors at
Marambio, the NovelSat solution has
increased network stability and reliability
compared to the previous communication
network solution.
Thanks to Telefónica’s deployment
at Marambio, where mobile data
transfer speeds previously reached
1.5Mbps, and can now enjoy speeds
of up to 20Mbps.
42 January 2017