Egypt’s Nilesat, fresh from the success of launching its Nilesat 201 satellite, and despite taking a long-term capacity from near-neighbour Eutelsat, is also looking for an additional orbital position to allow for further business expansion.  Nilesat’s orbital ‘hot spot’ is already home to some 572 channels.

Nilesat’s chief engineer Salah Hamza says: “It is a challenge to plan and launch a new satellite. A Nilesat 202 would be mainly a back-up to 201, but HDTV needs extra capacity.  In our region people watch on the same dish from 7 deg West to 26 deg East. There are no limits to placing dishes on our homes, so a new slot is quite feasible.  It costs just $20 to install a dish and LNB. Finding another orbital slot is needed. We have filings but they are not yet co-ordinated, or perhaps we can co-operate with another operator who has suitable rights. But all our studies tell us that within 2 years we will have fully filled our frequencies.”

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