Etisalat and Arabsat Plan Managed TV Platform on BADR-8

Etisalat by e& and Arabsat have agreed to launch a managed direct-to-home television platform using the BADR-8 satellite at the 26-degrees-east orbital position.

Etisalat will provide end-to-end uplink services from its TAS Earth Station in Sharjah, including content reception, signal aggregation, encoding, multiplexing, satellite uplink and monitoring. Arabsat will provide satellite coverage focused on the Middle East and North Africa.

The shared platform is intended to give broadcasters access to regional satellite distribution without operating their own uplink infrastructure. The partners have not announced a launch date or channel line-up. Source: Tech Times, citing Arabsat and Etisalat.