KT Corporation Secures Pre-launch Capacity on Intelsat 17

8 October 2009

Intelsat, the world’s leading provider of fixed satellite services, announced that KT Corporation, Korea’s leading communications service provider, signed a multi-year, pre-launch contract for capacity on the Intelsat 17 satellite (IS-17).

KT Corporation expects to use the IS-17 capacity to deliver enhanced broadband VSAT services to its government and enterprise customers with remote operations in other parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.  

“We will benefit from IS-17’s broad, inter-regional coverage, along with the high reliability and resilience for which the Intelsat network is well known, as we expand our business into developing regions,” said Yeong-Mo Kwon, KT Corporation’s Vice President, Network Group. “Our customers' bandwidth requirements are projected to continue growing and the high-powered bandwidth available on IS-17 allows us to support their needs as efficiently as possible.” 

“Intelsat is currently executing the largest fleet investment program in the company’s history with 11 satellites slated for launch from now through 2012. As further confirmation of Intelsat’s commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, five of those satellites will enhance our Asia-Pacific capacity, whereby we have aligned our inventory to meet the future needs of our customers in the region,” said David Ball, Intelsat’s Regional Vice President, Asia-Pacific. “Our fleet refresh, along with our continued investments in our ground network infrastructure, will result in a significant advancement in the types and quantities of capacity and teleport services we will have available for our media, networking and government customers worldwide.” 

After its launch in early 2012, IS-17 will replace the Intelsat 702 satellite located at 66º E. Once in service, IS-17’s Ku-band payload will provide optimal coverage over the whole of Russia, the Middle East and southern Africa. The C-band capacity on IS-17 will cover Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. It will also expand Intelsat’s C-band video distribution community in the Indian Ocean and Asia region.