AlphaStar

AlphaStar Digital Television was a direct-to-home satellite broadcasting service for the United States market developed by Canadian firm Tee-Comm Electronics. It was the first direct-to-home satellite broadcasting service in the United States to use the internationally accepted DVB-S broadcasting standard and used 39" satellite dish receivers. AlphaStar service launched in July 1996 but was discontinued completely by September 1997 with 40,000 subscribers as the company went through bankruptcy proceedings. The American assets of AlphaStar continue to be used under the auspices of the Champion Telecom Platform which also continues to own the AlphaStar brand. AlphaStar would also have alleviated a shortage of Canadian satellite capacity by using foreign (US) satellite capacity to fill Canadian needs—indeed this was a requirement for the Canadian company to obtain its license from Canada to commence broadcasting. Tee-Comm, the parent company of AlphaStar had originally co-founded the partnership that created ExpressVu (later Bell TV) as technology supplier but later divested all interest in ExpressVu.

In March 1995 AlphaStar leases 12 transponders on satellite Telstar 402R for a capacity of 110 video and 20 audio channels.

On 1 July 1996 AlphaStar service launches using 12 transponders on satellite Telstar 402R at 89°W in the Ku-band.

In 1996 AlphaStar obtained $102 million in a debt offering, but analysts claim it could have claimed double that sum.

In late 1996 AlphaStar's corporate parent Tee-Comm, owned by Alvin Bahnman, divested itself from the partnership it co-founded that created the Canadian ExpressVu DBS service, known today as Bell TV. As a result, ExpressVu obtained equipment and technology from EchoStar.

In 1997 AlphaStar was in the process of transitioning to the newly launched Telstar 5 satellite with the capacity for 200 video channels and 40 audio channels.

On 3 March 1997, AlphaStar announced AlphaStar Canada service with 75 channels of service (in reality only 35 were full-time video). The Canadian service never launched as the company went bankrupt and ceased broadcasting operations by September of that same year.

On 27 May 1997 the company initiated bankruptcy proceedings.

In August 1997 the operator of the Telstar 5 satellite, then named Loral Skynet, terminated its contract with AlphaStar after asking to be released from the contract earlier that year.

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