Another company, Hellas Sat, has achieved provisional certification of its Space Center in Cyprus under World Teleport Association's (WTA) Teleport Certification Program​. Executive director Robert Bell, said that Hellas Sat brings to 13 the number of WTA-certified teleports in Europe. The strength of the program is in assuring customers that they will receive the price-performance that they expect, based on independent, standards-based evaluation.
Since its introduction at IBC 2015, the Certification program has quickly grown in popularity. Starting with one certified facility in 2015, the program has added 40 in three years, and currently has 12 teleports engaged in the quality evaluation process. Certifications have been issued to teleports operated by USEI, AXESAT, STN, Eutelsat, du, COMSAT, Optus, Elara Comunicaciones, GlobalSat, Talia, Telenor, Telespazio, Vivacom, Cyta, Batelco, Singtel, CETel, Etisalat, Hawaii Pacific Teleport, Intelsat, Speedcast, Telstra Primacom, Santander Teleport and Arqiva. The industry has quickly adopted the transparent, independently verified standards as a means for teleports to differentiate themselves and for customers to choose the price-performance level suitable for their applications.
It is not an easy task to achieve Provisional Certification. A teleport operator completes a +170-item questionnaire and submits it to WTA. The Association analyzes the data based on standards established by its Certification Committee and issues the Provisional Certification based on the self-reported information. The teleport then has six months to achieve Full Certification.
To achieve Full Certification under WTA’s program, an auditor is dispatched to visit the teleport, provide independent validation of the data submitted in the questionnaire, and identify additional factors that may positively or negatively affect the score. Full Certification is issued at a Tier number from 1 through 4, of which 4 represents the highest degree of excellence, and remains in effect for 3 years.
Christodoulos Protopapas, CEO of Hellas Sat said they are delighted to become part of this certification program of WTA. Their main interest is to provide to their customers the highest level of services and support. They have made significant investments in recent years to develop their facilities, their DTH headend, antennae and network infrastructure, to ensure state-of-the-art managed services for their customers from their teleports in Cyprus and Greece. In their Greece and Cyprus premises, they host the primary and secondary Satellite Control Centres (SCCs), High-speed Satellite Internet Hubs, their Network Operation Centre (NOC) and, in Cyprus, the DTH TV headends. Both facilities are fully owned by Hellas Sat and offer both teleport and a wide range of managed services to their customers. Being located in Greece and Cyprus means they can offer teleport services to the Indian Ocean, European and Atlantic Ocean satellites, so this has slowly evolved into one of the major satellite telecom hubs in the region. The WTA certification program that they are now part of will provide additional recognition of their high quality of infrastructure, support and services they provide to their customers and to reinforce their commitment for further developments.
WTA’s Teleport Certification Program is created to serve both teleport operators and their customers by creating an objective, transparent, and internationally accepted method for teleport operators to document the quality of their operations for customers and strategic partners. It also provides a means for customers to select teleport vendors delivering the price-performance level that is appropriate for their applications. Here is a list of certified teleports.
For more information about the Teleport Certification Program, or email WTA Membership Director Randall Barney.
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