[SatNews] ...With the potential to reach 17 million households across 17 Northern, Central and Eastern European countries,
                                                                                             
Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I), provider of satellite services, today announced a multi-year agreement with  Slovak Telekom a.s., the largest Slovak multimedia operator, to expand Slovak Telekom’s direct-to-home (DTH) services in Central Eastern Europe (CEE).

As part of the agreement, Slovak Telekom is operating multiple transponders at the Intelsat 1 degree West premier video neighborhood. In addition, Intelsat’s terrestrial network, IntelsatOne, is providing an uplink from Intelsat’s Fuchsstadt, Germany Teleport with fiber contribution from Bratislava and a provision for disaster recovery uplink services. With the potential to reach 17 million households across 17 Northern, Central and Eastern European countries, Intelsat 1 degree West is a leading neighborhood for CEE media platforms.
 

“Intelsat’s global scale and portfolio of services enabled them to rapidly respond and meet our needs for a cost-efficient solution that will deepen and expand our relationships with new and existing subscribers,” said Dušan Švalek, Slovak Telekom’s CMMO. “The prime video neighborhood, reliability of the IntelsatOne network and benefits from the economies of scale were instrumental in our decision to move our service to Intelsat. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with Intelsat going forward.”

“Slovak Telekom’s decision to move their services to Intelsat further demonstrates that 1 degree West is the orbital location of choice for the CEE region,” said Jean-Philippe Gillet, Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) sales at Intelsat. “We look forward to providing them with the capacity and solutions they need to increase their subscriber base within the region.”