Orange will launch a DTH platform in Romania this month, using services provided by GlobeCast and SES.
It will use multiple transponders on Astra’s 31.5 degrees East orbital position and be broadcast in DVB-S2 and MPEG-4, with GlobeCast providing contribution, encryption and encoding for SD and HD channels. Orange Romania will launch the new package to complement its existing mobile services, enabling it to offer full multi-device communications to its customers.
Commenting on the launch, Jean-Francois Fallacher, CEO of Orange Romania, said: “Today Orange Romania is ready to provide high quality television services and to offer our Romanian customers truly attractive packages. Orange TV means the highest number of HD TV channels, the best satellite beam strength and coverage, dedicated customer care, multiscreen access, a smaller and efficient dish and other remarkable features that will allow us to offer an amazing TV experience. All these were brought to life with Orange Group’s expertise and solid partnerships we developed with world renowned companies in the TV industry.”
Philippe Fort, COO of GlobeCast, said: “Our offices worldwide collaborated to ensure a full technical solution for GlobeCast’s customer, Orange Romania, beginning with reception of the channels from Bucharest and ending with handoff to our partner SES for uplink to their powerful satellite. We are proud of the result and will continue to ensure excellent quality of service on the platform, leading to a high quality experience for the viewer.”
Ferdinand Kayser, CCO of SES, said: “Telecommunication operators increasingly invest in content distribution in order to complement their existing services. This agreement shows the growing importance of satellite as a technical infrastructure for linear television packages of telecommunication operators. In addition to its unrivalled technical reach, satellite offers a fixed cost structure that is not dependent on the number of households receiving a TV service. We are delighted that Orange Romania decided to launch its new service via ASTRA. This confirms the leading role that SES plays in Central and Eastern Europe and shows that our orbital slot 31.5 degrees East is becoming a new hot spot in this region.”
This will be the second DTH service in Romania to launch in as many months, with Freesat, a platform distributed by Eutelsat, having made its debut in May. Romania is also served by the DTH platforms Digi TV, Dolce and FocusSat.
