U.S. commercial X-band provider Xtar won a bandwidth contract to provide 16 MHz of X-band services to Intelsat General from its Xtar-Lant satellite over the Atlantic Ocean, the company announced Nov. 4.
    Intelsat General will use the capacity to support military, mobile, manpack terminals prior to deployment and to satisfy U.S. military customer requirements for X-band satellite capacity.
    The contract expands a relationship between the two companies that began with a master sales agreement in May. “We continue to see demand for X-band services from U.S. and allied governments to help fulfill their constantly growing need for high-capacity bandwidth to support a wide range of military applications, including communications on the move and high-capacity video, among others. As governments keep looking to commercial providers for satellite bandwidth, they are increasingly turning to X-band providers as other frequency bands become more limited in availability,” Xtar President and COO Philip Harlow said in a statement.