[SatNews] Orbit testing is complete and new capacity contract comes in...

Avanti Communications Group plc (LSE: AIM) has formally completed in orbit testing of the HYLAS 1 satellite. The testing process confirmed that HYLAS 1 is working in conformance with specification and, in some areas, delivering higher performance than originally specified. The satellite lifetime is expected to be at least six months greater than planned and the available power is several percentage points better than specification. This will translate into improved service quality, flexibility and usable capacity. The provision of services on HYLAS 1 will now commence. The first live customer service in the UK will be installed next week. Avanti has a test customer base of 5,000 end users whose service is delivered with leased Ku-band capacity. The migration of these customers to HYLAS 1 will begin on April 4th. Avanti has more than 60 Virtual Network Operator customers in 16 countries in Europe who have bought capacity. Many of them are also migrating existing end user customers from leased Ku band capacity on other satellites and this migration also begins on April 4th.

Avanti is also pleased to announce that yesterday it signed a seven year contract with a new Virtual Network Operator Customer for the sale of 80 Mb of capacity (with volume beginning at a lower level in year one and rising to 80Mb to match the customer’s expansion in end users). The contract, which commands pricing which exceeds market expectations, is worth 7.1m euros over the seven year term. The customer has approximately 3,000 satellite broadband end user installations in Europe which currently use Ku-band capacity on a competitors’ satellite. The customer will migrate that existing client base to HYLAS 1 and then grow its business further with Avanti. For reasons of commercial sensitivity during this migration period, the customer is not named.