[11-13-07 – Satellite Today] Eutelsat Communications signed a five-year contract with Entertainment Highway Ltd. to provide capacity on the W4 satellite, Eutelsat announced Nov. 13.

    Entertainment Highway will use a Ku-band transponder connected to a high-power spotbeam for a pay-TV platform serving Nigeria. Using teleport facilities in Rambouillet, France, Eutelsat will encrypt and multiplex the HiTV platform, which will then be uplinked to the W4 satellite by Overon, the broadcasting subsidiary of Abertis Telecom, from the Abertis teleport in Arganda, Spain. Reception is possible throughout Nigeria with a 60-centimeter dish, a set-top decoder and smartcard.

    "We are very pleased that the flexible configuration of our W4 satellite enables us to provide Nigeria’s new pay-TV platform with a footprint serving their full target market,” Olivier Milliès-Lacroix, Eutelsat’s commercial director, said in a statement. “This new contract shows the dynamic of digital television markets in sub-Saharan Africa for broadcasting international channels and new, locally-produced content.”

    Entertainment Highway hopes to capture 100,000 subscribers in its first year of operation. "Our relationship with Eutelsat could not have come at a better time," Toyin Subair, CEO of HiTv, said. "We were operating a regional terrestrial cable network but needed to achieve nationwide coverage in the shortest possible timeframe. Eutelsat helped us achieve that seemingly impossible feat.”