[Satnews] SES S.A. (NYSE Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange:SESG) and Panasonic Avionics have announced two major, multi-year, High Throughput Satellite (HTS) capacity agreements serving aeronautical, maritime, and oil and gas markets across the Americas.
These contracts, for SES-14 and SES-15, represent their highest bandwidth commitment to date of high-powered
HTS spot beam and wide beam Ku-band capacity. SES’s HTS coverage will enable airlines to offer next-generation inflight WiFi and live television services to passengers traveling on air routes throughout the Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Panasonic Avionics will also use the HTS capacity to serve growing maritime markets and oil and gas operations throughout the region.
“These major agreements are another step-change in the highly dynamic and buoyant aeronautical
connectivity market,” said Ferdinand Kayser, Chief Commercial Officer of SES. “Our new high throughput satellites, SES-14 and SES-15, are poised to dramatically change the airline passenger experience and introduce a new era of inflight connectivity. SES-14 and SES-15 are designed for mobility; they are able to dynamically tailor power allocation and bandwidth to maximize capacity. This enables delivery to aircraft across different geographies and time zones. The design allows for easy transition from one region to another, from one gateway to another, and from one satellite to the other. The unique designs of both satellites include video broadcast beams which complement the spot beams, maximizing throughput for Internet and video streaming traffic. Both satellites will be launched in 2017.”David Bruner, Vice President of Global Communications Services at Panasonic Avionics said, “With our
communications service expanding rapidly across several vertical markets, we are always looking for
innovative high throughput satellite designs that help us deliver the best connectivity service to our
customers. Working with SES, it was clear that their SES-14 and SES-15 satellites were the best option
for us to supplement our existing HTS capabilities and ensure a true broadband experience over the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Given their vision and conviction, Panasonic is very excited to
collaborate with SES, and we look forward to offering these ultra-high throughput services to our air
transport, business aviation, oil and gas, energy and maritime markets in 2017.”
