Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (APB) April 2016 Volume 33, Issue 3 | Page 21

NEWS & VIEWS April 2016 21 cash in on expanding MENA market Acknowledging that the Asia-Pacific region is the fastest-growing TV market in the world, APT Satellite’s Power Pan declared that the company’s two satellites, APSTAR-5 and APSTAR-7, are ideally positioned to service customers in the region. service capability in Asia,” said Pan. “We service more than 600 TV channels, providing tailor-made solutions as per each customer’s needs. All in all, we provide an unbeatable TV neighbourhood for both contribution and distribution in C- and Ku- bands.” KT Sat, the satellite business unit of South Korea’s KT, which was spun off from the parent company in 2012 to realise its strategy for growing the satellite business globally, has its own massive DTH operations in Mongolia. Its sister organisation, KT SkyLife, boasts of four million subscribers in South Korea. The company, which currently operates three satellites covering Africa, the Middle East, Europe and South-east Asia, has announced its intention of launching two new satellites in the fourth quarter of this year, KOREASAT-5A and KOREASAT-7, which will cover all of North and South Asia, including the Middle East. “The satellites have been manu- factured by Thales Alenia Space, and will be launched by Space X and Arianespace, respectively,” said KT Sat is launching two new satellites in the fourth quarter of this year, KOREASAT-5A and KOREASAT-7, which will cover all of North and South Asia, including the Middle East, announced KT Sat’s Jun Chul Kim. Eutelsat’s Ghassan Murat: Eutelsat is aiming to provide global connectivity, including plans to move into 4K/Ultra HD. Jun Chul Kim, VP, global sales and marketing at KT Sat. “With these new satellite fleets, we will be able to provide a very high-power broadcasting beam over the Asia- Pacific region, and will take one more step towards becoming a global satellite player.” Meanwhile, Ghassan Murat, Monarch HDX commercial development direc- tor for Eutelsat in the Middle East, proudly pointed out the fact that OSN, the leading pay-TV pro- vider in the Middle East and North Africa, was in the process of ramp- ing up capacity on the Eutelsat 8 West B satellite that had been launched in August last year. The Dual-channel H.264 Encoder for Broadcast Streaming and Recording www.matrox.com/monarchhdx/APB Matrox is a registered trademark and Matrox Monarch HDX is a trademark of Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd. All other company and product names are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of their respective owners. Newtec’s Bart Van Poucke: “Newtec Dialog secures the future of operators, giving them unparalleled economies of scale as well as the power to offer a variety of mobile and fixed services.” new contract, which set the stage for 4K/UHD in the Middle East and North Africa, was announced at CABSAT 2016. “OSN will take advantage of the additional capacity to introduce 4K/UHD services that will bring cutting-edge TV experience to viewers in the Middle East, offer- ing true immersion with an image quality four times richer than Full HD,” said Murat. “OSN also plans to ramp up its HD offer, with eight new channels announced recently, and several new premium and exclusive channels to be launched soon. 8 22