No small task, the Beijing Olympics has its own set of challenges—and we're not even referring to the athletes! Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS), one of Asia’s major satellite operators will assist Eurovision, a distributor of sports and news content, as its satellite broadcast partner for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. ABS will provide two C-band transponders on its ABS-1 satellite for Eurovision’s live transmissions from Beijing throughout the month of August. Stefan Kuerten, Director of Eurovision Operations explained that ABS-1 will be an essential part of their transmission network for the Olympic Games by transporting live High Definition events from the Olympics in Beijing, China, for distribution in Europe. Eurovision will uplink to ABS-1 from Beijing and downlink directly in Europe in a single hop, to lower costs and improve reliability.

Located at 75°East, ABS-1 is strategically located for interconnecting Asia and Europe, which makes it the ideal choice for direct transmission of live sports, news, and entertainment where service reliability and low latency are critical. ABS offers occasional service uplink, downlink, and fiber interconnection from gateway teleports in Hong Kong and Munich, Germany, as well as various services from partners’ teleports around Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The wide C-band coverage on ABS-1 allows direct uplink and downlink of signals from as far west as France and as far East as Guam.