iSAT Africa has selected Eutelsat Communications to partner on free-to-air delivery of African and international digital channels in Kenya and across East Africa in order to accelerate the move towards a fully digital broadcasting environment. iSAT and Eutelsat will use the African service area of the EUTELSAT 70B satellite to broadcast a platform of channels to digital headends and on a DTH basis to homes beyond range of terrestrial reception.
The first channels were launched by iSAT on 1 September . They include Family TV and K24 which are multiplexed on a DVB-S2 platform and uplinked from iSAT’s teleport in Nairobi to Ku-band capacity on EUTELSAT 70B.
iSAT Africa has also agreed terms with Eutelsat for use of C-band capacity on the EUTELSAT 3B satellite for contributing channels to the Nairobi teleport where they can be aggregated into the platform. The C-band footprint on EUTELSAT 3B embraces Africa, the Middle East, Europe and South America, covering a vast catchment area of broadcasters.
