Canal Holding Selects SES to Distribute TV Content Across West Africa

Canal Holdings, a media production company based in Benin, has signed a multi-year contract with SES to distribute Canal 3 TV channels across West Africa.

Under the agreement, SES will be providing broadcast capacity to deliver a Canal 3 pay TV channels bouquet in Hausa, Savanna, Wolof and French languages across West Africa. Canal Holdings will be delivering its TV offerings to its direct-to-home subscribers via SES’s Astra 2G satellite at 28.2 degrees East, and distributing the same channels to Benin and Niger via the SES-5 satellite located at 5 degrees East.

This agreement provides Canal Holdings with extensive West Africa coverage and the optimal technical solution.

“We are proud to be selected by Canal Holdings to support their growth ambitions in Africa, and to broadcast their pay TV bouquet offering to Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal. For consumers in this region, it means new content and new channels in four local languages,” said Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, Senior Vice President, Commercial, Africa at SES.

SES Launches High-Speed Customizable Broadband Service Across Africa
SES announced at AfricaCom the launch of SES Broadband, a flexible and customised high-speed broadband service, in five African countries  — South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.

The two-way communications platform offers up to 1 Gbps for both customisable data rates and fixed packages, with more than 99.5% service availability, and is supported 24/7 by a highly-responsive operations team. SES Broadband empowers regions, countries, and businesses to maximise their potential by offering high-speed broadband.

Krasimira Bozhinkova, Vice President, Data Portfolio Management at SES said, “The socio-economic impact of broadband access in empowering people has been proven and is growing. Our new platforms simplify the process of getting connected without limiting the experience. High-speed broadband is attainable over our platforms, and customers can be ensured of a high quality of service, an enhanced application experience and the responsiveness that is expected.

“In anticipation of customers’ demand for faster broadband connectivity in the next few years, SES will continue to invest in platform innovation to adopt new and more efficient technologies that can work seamlessly with next generation high throughput satellite architecture.”

SES, Intersat to Expand Internet Service Offerings to East Africa
SES and Intersat have signed a multi-year contract to expand Intersat’s internet service offerings to East Africa.

Intersat, one of the largest and most respected providers of internet solutions in Africa, is utilising the Ku-band capacity on SES’s NSS-12 satellite via the SES Djibouti teleport. The company will offer shared and dedicated internet services delivered via the latest and most advanced iDirect VSAT technology, with a capacity of up to 70Mbps. Intersat currently serves over 200 VSAT terminals using the SES service.

“Intersat is in the business of breaking down the price barrier that has held back the majority of Africans from benefiting from the internet. Not only have we connected businesses, government organisations, internet service providers, educational institutions and hospitals, but we have also brought affordable broadband internet via satellite to rural Africa,” said Subrata Roy, Chief Technical Officer at Intersat. “The new deal on NSS-12 satellite’s Ku-band will allow us to double the number of terminals we serve by 2016.”

“The agreement with Intersat allows us to better serve customers in the East African market who have little or no access to terrestrial based connectivity. The combination of premium and high-powered satellite capacity, and the use of the latest iDirect technology and high-grade teleport, will give Intersat an added advantage in the marketplace,” said Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, Senior Vice President, Commercial, Africa at SES.

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