MultiChoice To Expand DTH Services In Sub-Saharan Africa Via Intelsat Satellite

(RTTNews) - Intelsat S.A. (I) announced Wednesday that it has signed a 15-year service agreement with MultiChoice, Africa-based pay TV provider, on a new satellite to be added to the Intelsat network.

The new satellite, Intelsat 36, is expected to launch in late 2016 and will be co-located with Intelsat 20 at 68.5°E, Intelsat's premier direct-to-home or DTH neighborhood in Africa. MultiChoice has been the anchor customer at the 68.5°E location since 1995.

The Intelsat 36 design will feature Ku- and C-band services. The MultiChoice DTH services will utilize the Ku-band payload. The C-band payload will provide services to other customers using the premier Intelsat 68.5°E video neighborhood, which also distributes content to South Asian cable communities.

Concurrently with this news, Intelsat filed a report on Form 6-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission updating its 2014-2016 capital expenditure and customer prepayment guidance to reflect the net impact of the new satellite program.