TS News - New Columbia TDRSS Satellite Enters Service

• From: martyn@twics.com (Martyn Williams)
• Date: Wed, 03 Jul 1996 14:35:25 +0900
• From owner-ts-news@tele-satellit.com Wed Jul 3 01: 43:03 1996

TELE-satellit News, 3 July 1996

New Columbia TDRSS Satellite Enters Service
  WASHINGTON, DC, USA, 96/07/03 (TS) -- In orbit testing of the new
Columbia/TDRSS AOR-II satellite has been completed, it was announced by
Columbia Communications Corporation. The satellite will now begin work with
broadcasts from the Olympic games in Atlanta, from July 19 to August 5.

  The new satellite is located at 47 degrees West and has a footprint that
extends from Los Angeles to Eastern Europe. It joins the exisitng
Columbia/TDRSS satellites over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The
satellites are owned by NASA and Columbia has an agreement to operate the
C-band transponders on the birds. They are used for a variety of services
including TV relay.

  Columbia Communications markets its SkyWay family of domestic,
international and maritime telecommunications to a wide variety of
commercial and governmental users throughout Asia, North America and Europe.
These services are provided via the Columbia/TDRSS Satellite System, the
backbone of the company's numerous voice, data and video service offerings. 
 
  As they announced the entry to service, Columbia also said it had entered
a new alliance with Crawford Communications of Atlanta. Crawford has
dedicated a 9.3 meter antenna to the new Columbia/TDRSS satellite. This new
service is fully operational and available for the Olympic Games.

  Crawford's Jim Schuster also noted that there is limited capacity
remaining for the Olympics and that Columbia is the only space segment
provider with available C-Band analog capacity. 

  Ken Gross, Columbia's Chief Operating Officer added, "We believe Crawford
Communications brings immense experience and expertise to the Olympics
communications arena as they have in all the many services they provide.  We
are very happy to have them aboard as our first AOR-II customer and as a new
member of our SkyWay Alliance."

(c)TELE-satellit 1996. All rights reserved.

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