Alberta, Canada, March 4, 2015 – Hunter Communications Canada and Eutelsat Americas announce that with the successful launch of the E115WB satellite from Cape Canaveral on March 1st, a milestone has been achieved in expanding much needed Ku-band bandwidth over Canada.
Brent Perrott, President of Hunter stated, “The fourth quarter of 2015 will mark the end of our 3 year initial phase with Eutelsat where we have been selling services on the interim E115WA (Satmex-5) satellite in inclined orbit over Canada, and moving to our permanent E115WB (Satmex-7) satellite. The partnership on the new satellite will add nearly 300 MHz of capacity that was designed and dedicated for use over Canada – it is by far the highest powered capacity for this market with signal strength averaging 4 to 6 times that of other competitive options.
Patricio Northland, CEO of Eutelsat America, further stated “We couldn’t be more pleased to be working with Hunter, who is establishing itself as a pre-eminent player in the Canadian marketplace. As a result, the two firms working together have already achieved the sale of nearly one-third of the capacity to Panasonic Avionics, a firm with whom both Hunter and Eutelsat have worked for many years, and this service on the E115WB is expanding broadband access to airlines over Canadian skies. The bandwidth sale to Panasonic highlights the value of this Canadian capacity to many firms, and we look forward to further announcements from Hunter in the coming months.”
Further to the Panasonic bandwidth sale, which is providing internet access to commercial airlines, the capacity is also very well suited to the oil and gas markets of Alberta, the mining sectors in northern Canada and maritime use for both commercial and military applications. Additionally, Perrott stated that the two firms are exploring the expansion of video applications over satellite in Canada which have been the near-exclusive domain of one vendor – and such a situation always results in a market imbalance that increases the final cost to consumers.
About Hunter Communications Canada, Inc: Formed in 2001, Hunter Communications has been providing global satellite solutions for a wide variety of clients, including the U.S. government, energy industry, maritime and aeronautical sectors. The company focuses on bringing together satellite capacity from many space segment providers, the latest ground segment technology and customers to provide innovative satellite communications solutions. You can see a brief introduction to Hunter Communications at www.huntercomm.net. Hunter’s entrance into Canada is the culmination of a 5 year project that will ultimately result in the firm’s hosted payload on the Eutelsat E115WB satellite – which will prove to be the highest powered Ku-band service over the entire Canadian land-mass and surrounding waters.
About Eutelsat: Established in 1977, Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL, ISIN code: FR0010221234) is one of the world’s leading and most experienced operators of communications satellites. The company provides capacity on 34 satellites to clients that include broadcasters and broadcasting associations, pay-TV operators, video, data and Internet service providers, enterprises and government agencies. Eutelsat’s satellites provide ubiquitous coverage of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Americas, enabling video, data, broadband and government communications to be established irrespective of a user’s location. For more about Eutelsat please visit www.eutelsat.com