'Paksat' satellite earning sizeable revenues | | ISLAMABAD: Country's first communication satellite - PAKSAT-1 has attracted a sizeable business in recent months and is poised to attract more business in the coming days in the telecom and broadcasting regions.
A steady increase has been witnessed in the revenues as new companies are using the space available on the satellite to beam out their services, said Chairman SUPARCO, Maj Genral (Retd) Raza Hussain.
He said this during a second meeting of the board of directors held here Friday to review performance of the company and current tariff. Secretary Ministry of Information Technology, Khalid Saeed chaired the meeting.
PAKSAT International is responsible for selling the bandwidth on Pakistan's first communication satellite which is located at 38 degrees East Longitude.
PAKSAT-1, which provides transponder bandwidth in the C and Ku-band is currently supporting quite a few Pakistani satellite TV channels. PAKSAT International has also started marketing activities in Africa and Middle East regions which are covered by the satellite.
Chairman SUPARCO told the meeting that PAKSAT-1 was leased to protect our orbital slot and it is already being used to establish Pakistan in the satellite communications market. He said the satellite will be followed by PAKSAT-1R which is currently in the design phase.
The Chairman said the tiered tariff being devised will enable the broadcasters to provide more video channels besides helping improve the loading factor on PAKSAt-1 and also providing a cost effective mechanism to reach the viewers in Pakistan and abroad.
The board also urged PAKSAT International to pursue sales and marketing activities within Pakistan and abroad with to increase the revenue for the current satellite and to establish a quality brand for the replacement satellite.
Source: Pakistan Times |