Loral Skynet today announced an antenna seeding program for its Telstar 7 satellite that will provide cable operators access to the premier programming available on the satellite, enhancing their consumer cable package. Beginning immediately, Skynet will provide free antennas or feed horn kits to qualified cable operators.

This easy-to-use antenna program will be expanded to the next Loral satellite that will cater to cable operators – Telstar 13 – when it enters service next year. Loral Skynet is a subsidiary of Loral Space & Communications.

From Telstar 7, cable operators can receive premium content that includes Time Warner Cable¿s AthenaTV, A&E Television Networks, OlympuSAT programming, InDemand pay-per-view services, HBO HDTV and Playboy Television.

Through Loral Skynet¿s previous antenna seeding efforts, used by A&E, Time Warner and InDemand, programming on the Telstar 7 satellite now reaches an audience of approximately 30 million viewers.

In the fixed satellite service business, premier cable programming customers generally locate their content on satellites in the Western half of the North American orbital arc. Telstar 7, ideally located in this prime cable real estate at 129 degrees West Longitude, is the first satellite in what Loral Skynet has named its ¿cable zone.¿

Loral Skynet¿s cable zone will expand with the addition of Telstar 13 in the fourth quarter 2002, to be located at 121 degrees West Longitude.

Loral Skynet will use Telstar 13¿s 24 C-band transponders to complement the Telstar 7 satellite, enabling the company to provide greater service capabilities and to provide enhanced restoration and protection to customers in the cable industry across the US.

“The antenna seeding program adds significant value to Loral Skynet’s cable zone by offering the hardware and program management expertise cable operators demand,” said Terry Hart, president of Loral Skynet.

“Our antenna program eliminates the cable operators¿ cost for installing new antennas to gain access to programming on Telstar 7, greatly increasing programmers¿ demand for our cable zone.”

Telstar 7 carries twenty-four 36 MHz C-band transponders and twenty-four 36 MHz Ku-band transponders, with beams that cover the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and into Canada and Latin America. Telstar 7 serves a robust and growing cable neighborhood, as well as VSAT, data, Internet, and other value-added services.