Loral Skynet, a subsidiary of Loral Space and Communications announced March 20 that it has resumed offering Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) to customers in North America.

Pursuant to the terms of Loral’s agreement to sell certain of its North American assets to Intelsat in March 2004, Skynet was precluded from offering basic FSS capacity leasing services in North America for two years.

Loral Skynet currently operates two satellites that provide coverage of North America: Telstar 14 and Telstar 12. Telstar 14/Estrela do Sul offers Ku-band capacity across North America and Telstar 12 offers Ku-band capacity to as far West as Denver. Skynet also offers FSS service on transponders it leases across the North American arc, including four transponders it will operate aboard Satmex 6, a high-power C- and Ku-band satellite covering all of the Americas, which is scheduled to begin service this summer.

In addition, Loral Skynet recently announced the start of construction on Telstar 11N, a new multi-region Ku-band communications satellite to be located at 37.5 degrees West longitude. When it enters service in the second quarter of 2008, Telstar 11N will provide service from 39 high-power 54 MHz Ku-band transponders spread across four different geographic beams in each of North and Central America, including the United States, Europe, Africa and the maritime Atlantic Ocean Region. Telstar 11N will complement the coverage of Skynet’s Telstar 12 satellite at 15 degrees West longitude, which provides Ku-band trans-Atlantic coverage to an array of commercial and governmental users.