Telstar 18 has entered commercial service over Asia. The satellite carries a total of 54 active transponders, of which sixteen are high-power Ku-band transponders and thirty-eight are C-band transponders. The footprint stretches from Central Asia, through the Indian sub-continent, China, Korea, Japan, South East Asia, Australia and Hawaii.
In addition to cable programming and direct-to-home broadcasting services, Telstar 18 is scheduled to begin hosting Skynet’s SkyReach two-way IP-based networking solution in 2005.
Telstar 18’s users include regional video and data providers, such as Smart Digital Communications of Malaysia and PSVN, which is based at the Hawaii Pacific Teleport.
The satellite was built by Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) and is operated by Loral Skynet. APT Satellite Company of Hong Kong, will initially use 68.5% of Telstar 18’s transponder capacity for APSTAR-V services. The number of transponders used by APT will be reduced over time, ultimately to 54% of the satellite’s capacity. http://www.loral.com
