Yahlive and Etisalat collaborate on satellite TV uplink services

YahLive, the UAE based satellite broadcasting company, today signed a partnership agreement with Etisalat to collaborate on satellite broadcasting services. Under the new agreement, Etisalat will establish uplink services to YahLive's Y1A satellite which broadcasts at 52.5ºE. News of the agreement will be welcomed by UAE based companies as it will allow national channels to be broadcasted in HD format for the first time, and on the HD hot-spot in the region, through YahLive's easily accessible and growing HD satellite offering. Following the signing ceremony with Etisalat, Mohamed Youssif, CEO of YahLive, said, "The national channels in HD are the key attracting element to our satellite, so it was extremely important that we could offer an uplink service to those national channels, in addition to other channels based in UAE." "This partnership with Etisalat comes within our mandate to enhance our offerings and our outstanding TV broadcasting services. We are delighted that Etisalat has joined forces with us to extend the audience reach of its HD channels. We will offer Etisalat with satellite based broadcast solutions that will bring highly targeted, reliable, effective coverage and high definition TV. YahLive will also have a dedicated service team to respond to changing requirements," he concluded. Commenting on this development, Ali Amiri, Executive Vice President Carrier & Wholesale Services, Etisalat, said, "We very much value this collaboration with YahLive in using Etisalat's state of the art HD uplinking facilities which will further enrich our bouquet of services and broadcast offerings, while enabling broadcasters to extend their reach both in the UAE and in the region." YahLive, a partnership company between Yahsat, the United Arab Emirates-based satellite communications company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company and SES, a global DTH satellite operator, provides multi-purpose satellite communications services to commercial and governmental clients across the Middle East, Africa, Europe and South-West Asia. It has been specifically designed to offer broadcasters opportunities for HD TV distribution and to reach audiences that don't have access to IPTV and cable networks. With a wide portfolio of voice, data, video and internet connectivity solutions, Yahsat's first satellite, Y1A, was successfully launched last April while their second satellite, Y1B, is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2012.