SES AMERICOM has announced an agreement with Rainbow DBS, Cablevision’s satellite division, to lease 16 transponders over the next 10 years to augment the capacity of VOOM, its HDTV subscription television service.
VOOM will lease the Ku-band transponders aboard the AMC-6 satellite. The agreement, scheduled to start Oct. 1, establishes AMERICOM2Home as the provider for direct-to-home capacity. The company has secured bandwidth commitments for four FSS and BSS satellite payloads since its inception in April 2002.
As part of its AMERICOM2Home residential satellite-services initiative, SES AMERICOM worked with VOOM to develop the capability for a single-dish solution that provides VOOM subscribers the option to view 35 HD programs over its existing, proprietary satellite Rainbow 1, and soon over AMC-6.
VOOM will phase in MPEG-4 compression technology over the next two years to further expand its already expanded capability.
AMERICOM2Home provides technical and bandwidth solutions to direct-to-home providers. It developed a dual feed (Ku FSS and Ku BSS) elliptical-dish-antenna system for VOOM that enables the subscriber to receive signals from both satellites even though they are more than 10 degrees apart and operate in different bands.
For more information, visit: www.ses-americom.com.
