AMC-4 (formerly GE-4) is a commercial broadcast

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a Transponder (satellite communications), transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a Rad ...

owned by SES World Skies, part of SES (and formerly

GE Americom SES Americom was a major commercial communications satellite, satellite operator of North American geosynchronous satellites based in the United States. The company started as RCA Americom in 1975 before being bought by General Electric in 1986 ...

, then

SES Americom SES Americom was a major commercial satellite operator of North American geosynchronous satellites based in the United States. The company started as RCA Americom in 1975 before being bought by General Electric in 1986 and then later acquired ...

). Launched in 1999, from

Centre Spatial Guyanais The Guiana Space Centre (; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas region of France in South America. Kourou is located approxim ...

ELA-2 The Guiana Space Centre (; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, an overseas region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximately north of the equator at a latitude o ...

by Ariane 44LP H10-3. It provides coverage to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

. Located in a

geostationary orbit A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular orbit, circular geosynchronous or ...

, AMC-4 provides service to commercial and government customers, with programming distribution, satellite news gathering and broadcast internet capabilities. AMC-4 was launched on 13 November 1999 at 22:54

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

as GE-4, GE Americom's fourth A2100 hybrid C-band and Ku-band satellite. The C-band payload was home to national

television networks A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

broadcasting to thousands of

cable television headend A cable television headend is a master facility for receiving television signals for processing and distribution over a cable television system. A headend facility may be staffed or unstaffed and is typically surrounded by some type of security ...

s. AMC-4's Ku-band

transponders In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...

served the ''direct-to-home'' (DTH),

VSAT A very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) is a two-way satellite ground station with a satellite dish, dish antenna that is smaller than 3.8 meters. The majority of VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m. Bit rates, in most cases, range from 4 ...

, business television and

broadband Internet In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide- bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Internet access. The transmission m ...

market segments. These Ku-band transponders are designed to be switchable between North and South American coverages. It was renamed AMC-4 after GE Americom was bought by SES and re-branded

. In 2009, SES Americom merged with SES New Skies to form SES World Skies. AMC-4 has been replaced by

SES-1 SES-1 is a geostationary communications satellite which is operated by SES World Skies, then by SES History It was originally ordered by SES Americom as a ground spare for AMC-5R, however in April 2008 a decision was made to launch it, a ...

in 2010. AMC-4 has been moved to 134.9° West, and currently has no FTA signals.

Transponder data

References

Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Spacecraft launched in 1999 SES satellites AMC-04 {{communications-satellite-stub

Transponder data

See also

References