SES S.A. (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) announced its affiliate Sistemas Satelitales de México (SSM) has received approval from the Mexican government to offer Ku-band satellite capacity into Mexico from its AMC-15 and AMC-16 satellites. EchoStar Satellite Services L.L.C., a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (Nasdaq: SATS), has acquired the rights to use this capacity from SES and now plans to offer full-time and occasional use space segment to authorized entities in Mexico through SSM.

The authorizations to use the Ku-band spectrum at these orbital positions for fixed satellite services (FSS) were recently granted by the Mexican government to SSM. Today, AMC-15 and AMC-16 are used primarily by enterprise customers in the United States. Positioned at 105 degrees West and at 85 degrees West, respectively, AMC-15 and AMC-16 can transmit video, audio or data with full coverage of Mexico and the United States. Also, upon launch in 2011, EchoStar is expected to use capacity on QuetzSat’s QuetzSat-1, a high power communications satellite to be located at 77 degrees West, with coverage of Mexico and North America. EchoStar intends to use QuetzSat-1 for broadcast services for the Dish Mexico DTH service in Mexico and for the DISH Network DTH service in the United States.