NEW BUSINESS FOR W2A

Keeping in touch with French troops

Astrium Services, through its Toulouse-based subsidiary London Satellite Exchange (LSE), selected C-band capacity on W2A to provide additional space segment resources to its “Proximity” service across Africa. The “Proximity” portfolio offers a full range of end-to-end fixed and mobile satcom services to corporate and government customers, particularly in the energy and GSM backhauling markets.

Astrium’s “PASSEREL” Welfare service was first to use W2A to provide fixed and wireless voice and internet services to French and European armed forces in Chad. Under the contract with “Economat des Armées” (French MoD’s Joint Logistics and Supply Agency), the PASSEREL service enables more than 10,000 overseas forces to keep in touch with family and friends by telephone and via the internet.

Services are operated from the Astrium Services teleport in Toulouse, with the support of LSE’s 24/7 Customer helpdesk and Network Operations Centre teams.

Jean-Francois Gambart, CEO of LSE, commented on why W2A was chosen as a complementary platform for Astrium Services: “Eutelsat’s W2A satellite provides exceptional C-band coverage to Astrium Services’ key African market.”