SENDING OUT ALL THE RIGHT SIGNALS
Eutelsat’s state-of-the-art teleport at Rambouillet enables broadcasters and service providers to deliver their services around the world

Since acquiring the Rambouillet teleport over two years ago, Eutelsat has built up and extended its infrastructure and facilities to address the growing demand for comprehensive broadcast, telecom and broadband services. Accessing satellites using C-band, Ku-band or Ka-band frequencies, the teleport is a unique access point to markets in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, as well as large parts of Asia and the Americas.

Rambouillet is also supported by a powerful, fully redundant and flexible ATM-based terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure, with Points of Presence (PoPs) at major carriers’ hotels located in Paris, London, Frankfurt and Warsaw.

Redundant connectivity to the Internet is provided via four major Tier 1 ISPs, and worldwide call termination is available through partner telecom operators.

A leading video broadcast and distribution centre

Video broadcasting services include signal transport, audio/video encoding, multiplexing, turnarounds and video encryption. Major broadcasters such as Turner Broadcasting Systems, TF1 and AXN Europe use the facilities for seamless broadcast services.

For the AXN Europe stable of channels, which are part of Sony Pictures Television International, Eutelsat takes video and audio signals in SDI format from the AXN playout centre in London, encodes them in MPEG2 and transports them by fibre to the Rambouillet teleport, via PoPs in London and Paris.

Here the content is encrypted, multiplexed into a DVB stream and transmitted to Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, via Eutelsat’s W2 satellite.

Data services to keep nations in touch

The teleport also hosts data services operated by Eutelsat’s Partners (ISP’s, integrators, etc) including point-to-point links, IP trunking, Internet access, private networks, VoIP and other interactive IP based applications.

VoIP transport services over satellite are ideal for telephony and GSM trunking. Signals from
remote sites, with little or no existing infrastructure, are connected directly via the teleport to
telecommunications operators at Eutelsat PoPs.

Solutions include equipment provisioning, space capacity, teleport services, Internet access and voice termination. Sytea, for example, based in Niger, has chosen Eutelsat’s turnkey VoIP operation through the Rambouillet teleport, in cooperation with Eutelsat’s partner B3G, to put in place a satellite/WiMax solution for VoIP and Internet, for large businesses and embassies throughout the country. The service enables Sytea to avoid overloaded, and often limited, terrestrial networks in order to provide a high-speed Internet service that can be rapidly deployed. Major African Internet Service Providers use the trunking services provided via the teleport to feed their networks, at bit rates up to 70 Mbps.

Satellite and payload control

In addition to supporting commercial services, the teleport is also used for satellite operations such as Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) activities, satellite commissioning In Orbit Tests, satellite control activities and payload control and monitoring. Whilst providing Eutelsat with complete control over its own satellite operations, these facilities make Eutelsat’s international teleport at Rambouillet a true space centre.