[Satellite TODAY 12-14-09] SES Astra has partnered with Bulgarian telecom operator Neterra to offer contribution services to broadcasters in Bulgaria and the Balkan region, the company announced Dec. 11.
    Neterra will use capacity at SES Astra’s 31.5 degrees East orbital position to provide broadcasters with an optimized solution to deliver their content to cable and terrestrial headends in the region. The services will be uplinked from Neterra’s teleport in Sofia, Bulgaria, and include multiplexing, encoding and encryption of the signal. The first broadcaster to use the service is the Bulgarian channel TV 7.
    Separately, SES signed a deal with Intersat Africa to bring its satellite broadband service, Astra2Connect, to the Middle East. Intersat Africa will market Astra2Connect in Middle Eastern countries and offer four different download packages with speeds up to 2 megabits per second.
    It is the second service distribution agreement that SES Astra has signed with Intersat Africa, a provider of satellite-based Internet services based in Kenya, for broadband services on SES Astra’s new satellite Astra 3B, scheduled for launch in 2010.