[Satellite Today 03-04-09] GlobeCast has started transmissions of its new African DTH platform on SES Astra’s Astra 4A (Sirius 4) satellite, GlobeCast announced Mar. 3.
    The platform, located at 5 degrees East, aims to provide sub-Saharan Africa’s widest and most powerful coverage and is the first Ku-band DTH platform with coverage in the region. The move to create the platform was driven by a strong demand for an alternative to the pay-TV bouquets in sub-Saharan Africa, Globecast said.
    GlobeCast has contracted one transponder on the satellite that facilitates uplink from Europe and is compliant to distribute services to IPTV or terrestrial network headends.
African broadcaster VoxAfrica is one of the first channels to sign up for the new platform, GlobeCast said.