The joint venture satellite service company formed by SES-Astra and Eutelsat has been named Solaris Mobile. The company is establishing corporate headquarters in Dublin and plans to create 50 high-skilled jobs over the next three years.
Solaris will provide services in the so-called S-band between 2.0 and 2.2 GHz, normally used for satellite and terrestrial mobile services, and adjacent to existing 3G services in Europe.
The company is being headed by former BT and Kingston executive Steve Maine. “This venture is of major strategic importance to our parent companies as it ensures a first mover advantage in Europe for satellite broadcast services to the mobile industry. As this is the first joint venture between SES-Astra and Eutelsat, it was vital to find the right location for the company HQ.” The two companies have already invested €130 million in the infrastructure for the new services.
Solaris will use the new Eutelsat W2A satellite that will be located at 10 degrees East.
A demonstration of the technology being used by Solaris was recently given in Dublin by Alcatel-Lucent.
