SES NEW SKIES, an SES company, has announced a multi-year, multi-transponder agreement with the Essel Group for the provision of C-band satellite capacity to support the digitalisation of India’s vast cable infrastructure comprising more than 70 million homes. The agreement is for capacity ramping up to six transponders over a five year period, and initially covers capacity on NSS-703 at 57° East, transitioning to NSS-12 in 2009 (Both NSS-703 and NSS-12 are satellites meant to provide cross-connectivity across continents).

The Essel Group is one of India’s leading media enterprises with diversified interests in broadcasting (Zee TV), direct-to-home (Dish TV) and cable networking (WWIL) among others. SES NEW SKIES' satellite capacity will be used to support a new digital headend-in-the-sky (HITS) platform to distribute pay-TV signals to cable headends serving millions of Indian homes. To that effect, WWIL, an Essel Group company, plans to convert its existing analog cable service to 'HITS' and to roll out a service of up to 150 digital channels across India. The initiative is in line with the stated objective of the Indian government to speed up the deployment of digital infrastructure, and to enable conditional access services and value-added services to more than 100 Indian cities and towns with populations greater than one million inhabitants.

"SES NEW SKIES is a valuable partner for the Essel Group and this capacity initiative grows the very important relationship we have in place with SES for services that range from direct-to-home satellite, VSAT and now 'HITS' capacity," said an Essel Group spokesperson.

Deepak Mathur, vice president-sales, South Asia, for SES NEW SKIES, said, "We are delighted to continue our strategic collaboration with the Essel Group by providing C-band capacity for this key digitalisation initiative of Essel’s cable infrastructure. The Essel Group is one of our most valued customers globally and we look forward to supporting the nationwide roll-out of 'HITS', which is set to provide more digital television choice to millions of Indian cable homes."