Milestones
Founded in 1976 by the 21 member-states of the Arab League, Arabsat has been serving the growing needs of the Arab world for over 30 years. Now one of the world’s top satellite operators, and by far the leading satellite services provider in the Arab world, it carries 350+ TV channels and 160+ Radio stations, reaching tens of millions of homes in over 100 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Europe, including an audience of more than 164 million viewers within the 21 Arab countries alone ("2007 MENA Sat-TV Landscape" study performed by IPSOS-stats for Arabsat), and delivering hundreds of thousands of vital telecommunication links to companies and governments throughout the entire Middle East and Africa continent (MEA) region.
Operating a growing fleet of 4 satellites at the 26°East and 30.5°East positions of the geostationary orbit, Arabsat is the only satellite operator in the region offering the full spectrum of Broadcast, Telecommunications and Broadband services. This translates to enough space capacity for providing a greater number than any other player in the region of TV and Radio broadcasting services, professional data network solutions, telephony & IP trunking backbone connectivity, and broadband Internet access to media and entertainment companies, corporate customers or government entities.
Arabsat also maintains strategic partnerships with most of the world’s leading satellite companies, packaged services aggregators, and Value-Added Services integrators, allowing customers to reach farther than ever and deliver content or state-of-the-art solutions to any end-viewers' audience or business partners around the planet.
Arabsat is committed to stay at the forefront of best-in-class satellite services in the MEA region, continuously expanding its range of customer-oriented solutions with an unparalleled level of quality and reliability, bringing in cutting-edge technology, and providing the largest ever amount of capacity with ever-expanding footprints to meet the growing and evolving needs of its customers across the Arab world--and way beyond. To support this ambition, Arabsat has announced in 2007 that, starting in 2008, it will launch one new satellite every year over four years, with a second 4th Generation satellite already launched mid-2008 –BADR-6, and three 5th Generation spacecrafts either under construction or RFP, to be launched over the following three years; and more to come.
Satellites
Arabsat currently operates capacity on 4 satellites at its 26°East and 30.5°East orbital positions with the latest one just launched; and has 3 new ones lined-up for 2009, 2010 and 2011 @ 26°East.
In-Orbit
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BADR-6 (07-Jul-08), BADR-4 (09-NOV-06), and BADR-3, all co-located at Arabsat's 26°East Direct-to-Home (DTH) "Hot Spot" in Ku-band, with BADR-3 ensuring "hot" in-orbit back-up for a significant part of BADR-6 & BADR-4 transponders.
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Arabsat-2B @ 30.5°East, essentially carrying Telecommunications services in both C-band and Ku-band, but also DTH Broadcasting towards Africa in C-band.
Fleet Expansion
- Arabsat-5A (2009), @ 30.5°East
- BADR-5 (2010), @ 26°East
- Arabsat-5C (2011), @ 20°East
This variety of satellites enables Arabsat to provide the highest downlink power and the widest coverage area over the MENA (Middle East & North Africa) region compared to any other satellite operator. Furthermore, with its recent BADR-4, and the brand new state-of-the-art BADR-6 just launched, Arabsat now offers by far the youngest, and therefore the most reliable and versatile, fleet in the region.
In addition to its own space capacity, and based on a series of strategic partnerships with the world leaders in satellite communications services, Arabsat also provides its customers with One-Stop-Shopping seamless complementary connectivity with the rest of the world via its "Global Arabic Bouquet" digital DTH platforms, enabling Broadcast customers to reach their final audiences 24/7, wherever they are located on the planet.
Services
ARABSAT customers use its satellites for 2 main ranges of services:
Broadcasting
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Direct-to-Home TV & Radio broadcasting (DTH), Digital & Analogue;
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High-Definition TV: with the only 4 HD-TV channels available live 24/7 over the entire Middle East & North Africa region, and increasingly more over the coming months;
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Global Arabic Bouquet: digital DTH selection of channels for Arab viewers in Europe Africa, North & South America, and Asia;
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Distribution: Point-to-multipoint links feeding aggregation and re-broadcasting sites (head-ends, transmit towers, etc.);
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Backhauling: Links from content-origination locations to multiplexing and uplinking sites;
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Contribution: Point-to-point repatriation links;
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Occasional Use TV: Program exchanges and feeds, e.g. News, Sports, and Special Events.
Telecommunications
- Voice & Data trunking;
- Internet backbone connectivity;
- Regional Telephony interconnection;
- Data networks;
- Public/Government networks, mostly domestic;
- Private networks, either intra-regional or domestic.
Locations
In addition to our headquarters in Riyadh (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) we are now closer to our customers with 4 active regional offices in Dubai (UAE), Cairo (Egypt), and Paris (France), with 2 earth stations in Riyadh and Tunis. -- Go to interactive map.
For further information, please contact:
Arab Satellite Communications Organization
eMail: info@arabsat.com
Fax: +966 1 483 0940
P.O. Box: 1038, Diplomatic Quarter, Riyadh 11431, KSA