Gazprom Space Systems together with Telemedia allocated two platforms of Africa TV channels on Yamal-402 satellite
Telemedia has an extensive teleport in Rivonia just north of Johannesburg where they provide playout facilities, studios and correlate TV packages to form multichannel bouquets. Telemedia then provides the uplink onto Yamal 402 at 55° East to provide a DTH (Direct to Home) multichannel television service.
Gazprom Space Systems (GSS) provides the Yamal-402 satellite capacity on both the Sub-Sahara Beam and the European Beam which is cross strapped from South Africa. These new TV channels cover an audience of Sub-Sahara Africa from Dakar in the North West to Mauritius in the South East. Extensive coverage is provided over most of emerging Africa with EIRP to allow reception on 60 cm or 90 cm diameter dishes. The European beam provides coverage from London in the North West to Dubai and Mecca in the South East. This particular beam also covers the North Coast of Africa and Central Europe.
There are sports, entertainment, cultural and educational channels. Telemedia also uses Yamal-402 capacity for Occasional Use Contribution for the horse racing and due to the extensive footprint of the Yamal-402 beam, it is possible to provide horse racing contributions from Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Nairobi back to the teleport in Johannesburg.
Peter Bretherick, the Telemedia Managing Director said that the high EIRP’s and the extensive wide area footprint of the Sub-Sahara beam gives us huge versatility for both Contribution and Distribution over the Africa Continent. Most satellites tend to concentrate either on the Francophone West Africa or the English East and South Africa. Very few satellites are able to combine and give the extensive coverage of Yamal-402. The added advantage is the wide area coverage of the European footprint which is cross strapped to South Africa allowing services to be uplinked from Johannesburg and downlinked throughout the Middle East and Europe.
Igor Kot, GSS Deputy Director General: «Telemedia is one of the largest multimedia teleports in Africa and we are glad that our companies cooperate in allocation of TV platforms and also we plan to develop our services by adding new TV channels, occasional use opportunities and also for satellite capacity provision for Internet connectivity for the Africa Continent».