REACH, the joint venture between Australian carrier Telstra and Hong Kong-based PCCW Ltd., is boosting its position in the Asia Pacific region with a slew of recent deals with international satellite operators.

REACH has become the first operator to lease capacity on AsiaSat’s AsiaSat 4 satellite. It will be leasing one C-band transponder on that bird. REACH already uses the AsiaSat 2 satellite to offer satellite services to global carriers, major broadcasters and corporate customers.

AsiaSat CEO Peter Jackson was naturally delighted to secure a deal for AsiaSat 4. “We are extremely pleased to announce the first lease on AsiaSat 4 with REACH despite a soft market. This new deal signals the beginning of the revival in demand for transponder capacity in the region and an improvement in the Asian economy.”

Secondly, REACH announced a deal with New Skies Satellites under which it will install a 13 meter Ku-band antenna at its Hong Kong gateway, providing dedicated access to New Skies’ NSS-6 satellite for the delivery of voice, video, data and Internet services throughout the Asia Pacific area.

Maurice Lie, New Skies Satellites senior sales director for the Asia Pacific, commented that REACH’s teleport facility, “combined with our state-of-the art NSS-6 pan-Asian satellite, will give New Skies’ customers access to the region’s best technical resources for transmissions from a major Asian business center to any location between Southern Africa and the Middle East across to Japan and Australia.”

Finally, the operator has inked a deal with Intelsat under which the U.S.-based satellite operator will lease services from REACH’s teleport in Hong Kong. Intelsat’s customers will be able to use the teleport facilities in Hong Kong for uplinking, downlinking and DVB platforms, in addition to Internet and private line services. The deal marks the completion of Intelsat’s global terrestrial infrastructure that it is using to offer its GlobalConnex range of network solutions.

–Mark Holmes