EUTELSAT is in a quandary. Still smarting by the ‘loss’ of six crucial transponders to SES from its EuroBird slot, destined to be co-located at 28.2-29 degrees East alongside SES’s second Astra cluster, Eutelsat insiders are suggesting that were it not for its upcoming privatisation it might be reopening its contentious battle with Astra over the 28.2 orbital position. Eutelsat’s senior management is keeping its powder dry until discussions have taken place with its management board, and taken soundings from signatories. By any measure the recent Astra acquisition of six Eutelsat transponders from the upcoming EuroBird is an audacious move, described by one industry insider as “cheeky”. Nevertheless, the action is wholly allowable under Eutelsat rules.

One major Eutelsat signatory, who declined to be named, said the Luxembourg order for six transponders was perfectly in order. “These are transponders, and signatories are signatories. You don’t have green signatories which are good and red signatories which are bad. Maybe it is a little out of the spirit of the agreement, but who knows the spirit of the agreement? In one respect it is certainly outside the agreement, in as much as the majority of the frequencies were always SES. Now they have a few extra megahertz. It’s not so much, but what this extra bandwidth allows is for them to offer, I think, capacity at a bit of a discount. It is going to be interesting.” Interesting is an understatement. Eutelsat’s director general Giuliano Berretta firmly resisted answering questions on the topic during a recent interview with Interspace, suggesting only that Luxembourg was not his first choice as a customer for EuroBird.

On the question of marketable space on EuroBird, the satellite has 24 transponders, of which 11 are allocated to Deutsche Telekom (DT). DT markets for Eutelsat to German and other European users, according to Eutelsat, with the expectation that these transponders will be used for internet and perhaps multimedia traffic. Out of the 13 remaining transponders, six have now been taken by Eutelsat’s Luxembourg signatory for Astra, and for the lifetime of the satellite.

Berretta says, “We always knew the satellite had limited capacity. I don’t want to go over the old history but it was an orbital position we have always been interested in, independent of Astra. Unfortunately, for the reasons the whole world knows, Astra placed a satellite there before us and we still think we have the rights [to the orbital position] to the DBS frequencies because the problem hasn’t been completely solved as far as the Radio Frequency Board [is concerned] because we left things to calm down.”

Deutsche Telekom helped broker the agreement between Astra and Eutelsat early last year whereby the two fierce rivals agreed to co-operate from the 28.2-29 degrees East positions. Eutelsat’s view is that EuroBird will serve two purposes, first to give Eutelsat capacity in that orbital position which it says was always its concept, and that having Eutelsat capacity at the position was good for competition into the market. Generally, the question of competition has been welcomed by the market, with some players keen to access the valuable UK market at more competitive rates than those levied by Astra.

Berretta’s final words: “EuroBird was greeted by users as a very positive move, good for price and customer choice. This option is now limited by the acquisition of part of our orbital capacity by our competitor. This is all I can say.”