HOT BIRD will help Orange extend its television service via satellite to rural France

Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD (13 degrees East) and ATLANTIC BIRD 3 (5 degrees West) satellites will provide the direct-to-home coverage for the satellite TV offer planned by Orange (France Telecom). Orange - one of the world’s leading IPTV providers using xDSL and more recently, fibre - wants to extend its television offer to areas where the wired network does not have enough bandwidth, including rural communities.

The Orange satellite TV service will commence this summer and will be delivered as part of a hybrid triple-play offer. The satellite decoder will interface with the Livebox home gateway, which takes broadband and telephony off the ADSL lines. Eutelsat's HOT BIRD and ATLANTIC BIRD 3 satellites already provide DTH services to 4.8 million satellite antennas in France.

Transmission of Orange TV programmes, including provision of satellite capacity and ground services, will be managed by GlobeCast, a subsidiary of France Telecom.