In a new impetus to the private media sector in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia's General Commission for Audiovisual Media gave the greenlight to a contract worth nearly SR10 million. The Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat) and Media Speed Company have signed this contract for providing, installing and operating a digital Satellite TV Broadcasting platform in Riyadh. It will broadcast on Arabsat satellites and be designed with the state-of-art technology to keep up with the rapid developments in satellite TV & Radio broadcasting technology. “We are delighted that Arabsat is the first satellite operator involved in building and operating this platform, hoping this to be a real start for building Media Cities all over the major regions of the Kingdom in the near future, as Saudi Arabia is highly ranked globally, economically, politically and religiously,” said Khalid bin Ahmed Balkheyour, President and CEO of Arabsat. Mofleh Al-Haftah, Media Speed Chairman added, “We have been keen throughout our offer to provide the state-of-the-art technical solutions and systems from major international companies to ensure the highest levels of quality and regularity of the broadcasts to meet Arabsat's high standards. We hope through carrying out this project, in addition to what we are doing now by building the Saudi Media Platform (Shamas), to contribute in building a distinct infrastructure for the satellite channels operating in the Kingdom and creating an attractive environment for investment and new projects in the field of visual media.” In other satellite connectivity news, Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) has chosen a European developer of satellite communication equipment, Newtec, to enable connectivity to remote sub-stations in the energy distribution network in the Kingdom, through its two-way satellite. SEC will use Newtec's very small aperture terminal (VSAT) platform to provide automatic meter reading (AMR), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), as well as voice and video satellite connectivity between remote sub-stations to enable new applications. The rollout will begin at sites in the Eastern Region.
