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Satnews Daily
April 3rd, 2014

AsiaSat... Uses An Enormous Footprint To Step Up Pashto Coverage (SatBroadcasting™)


[SatNews] ...serves the large Pashto-speaking population in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and other regions covered by the satellite’s enormous C-band footprint.

Asia’s leading satellite operator, Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat) today announced that Pakistan’s Pashto entertainment channel, Pashto 1, has commenced broadcasting on AsiaSat 7 at the orbital location of 105.5 degrees East. This channel serves the large Pashto-speaking population in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and other regions covered by the satellite’s enormous C-band footprint.

Pashto 1 is a free-to-air television channel, offering general entertainment programming, including drama, music and culture.

“Joining AsiaSat 7’s excellent South Asian TV neighbourhood provides us with an exciting opportunity to widen our reach beyond our local community to a larger audience across the Asia-Pacific region,” said Saif ur Rehman Akazai, Chief Operating Officer of Pashto 1. “We are very pleased to work with AsiaSat, Asia’s leading satellite operator, on AsiaSat 7 to access the vast audience base that is second to none in Asia.”
“We welcome Pashto 1 to the AsiaSat family of premium South Asian programming. Pashto 1 helps us expand our lineup of local language television services onboard our fleet, providing more choices to various ethnic groups living and working across the Asia-Pacific region,” said William Wade, President and Chief Executive Officer of AsiaSat.

Pashto 1 is available free-to-air on AsiaSat 7 in C-band with the following reception parameters:
Orbital Location : 105.5 degrees East
Transponder : C12H
Frequency : 4077.75 MHz
Video Format : MPEG-2 DVB-S
Polarisation : Horizontal
Modulation : QPSK
Symbol rate: 3.185 Msym/sec
FEC: 3/4

Pashto 1, serves as a voice of Pakhtoons scattered in Pakistan, India, the Middle East and Afghanistan, is a full entertainment channel with local ethics and customs. For more information, please visit.

AsiaSat 7 is a replacement satellite for AsiaSat 3S at the orbital location of 105.5 degrees E. Based on the powerful Space Systems/Loral 1300 series satellite platform and launched in 2011, AsiaSat 7 carries 28 C-band and 17 Ku-band transponders, as well as a Ka-band payload. Its region-wide C-band footprint covers Asia, the Middle East, Australasia and Central Asia, with two Ku-band fixed beams serving East Asia and South Asia, and a steerable Ku-beam optimized over Australia.

Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat), a regional satellite operator in Asia, serves over two-thirds of the world's population with its four satellites, AsiaSat 3S, AsiaSat 4, AsiaSat 5 and AsiaSat 7. The AsiaSat satellite fleet provides services to both the broadcast and telecommunications industries. Over 450 television and radio channels are now delivered by the company's satellites offering access to over 710 million TV households across the Asia-Pacific region. AsiaSat also provides telecommunications operators and end users services such as voice networks, private VSAT networks and broadband multimedia. AsiaSat’s latest satellites, AsiaSat 6 and AsiaSat 8, are scheduled for launch in the coming months. AsiaSat 9 which is on order from the manufacturer is planned to be launched in 2017. AsiaSat is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings Limited, a company listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (Stock Code: 1135). For more information, please visit.