Artistic rendition of the EUTELSAT 9A satellite.

...their satellite services to the EUTELSAT 9A satellite (ex. EUROBIRD 9A) operated by Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL). The two channels are uplinked to EUTELSAT 9A by P&TLuxembourg whose services were selected following an open call for tender by the European Commission. EbS and EbS+ are a unique source of EU-related broadcast material for media professionals. Programming comprises live events from the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and other institutions, plus news items and stockshots on EU policies and issues. With the move to 9 degrees East, both services will benefit from the broad footprint of EUTELSAT 9A, which sweeps across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and into European parts of the Russian Federation. Signals, broadcast free-to-air, are also upgraded to DVB S2 and MPEG4 with audio channels encoded using AAC-HE. The combination of DVB-S2 and MPEG4 was chosen to take advantage of the most advanced and bandwidth-efficient coding techniques in use on Eutelsat platforms.