Industry | Telecommunications |
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Founded | 2 May 1969 |
Headquarters | Ottawa, ON, Canada |
Key people
|
Daniel S. Goldberg |
Products | satellite communications and integration services |
Website | www |
Telesat Canada is a Canadian satellite communications company founded on May 2, 1969. The company is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario as well as having offices in the United States and Brazil.
On October 5, 2007 Loral Space & Communications Inc. and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board of Canada received the final regulatory approval necessary to complete the acquisition of Telesat from BCE Inc. for CAD $3.25 billion. The acquisition closed on October 31, 2007, with Loral owning 64 percent of Telesat.
At the same time, Telesat Canada merged with Loral Skynet, a subsidiary of Loral Space & Communications. Loral Skynet was a full-service global satellite operator headquartered in Bedminster, New Jersey. This resulted in the transfer of all of the assets of Loral Skynet to Telesat.
The company is now the fourth-largest fixed satellite services provider in the world. It owns a fleet of satellites, with others under construction, and operates additional satellites for other entities.
Telesat carries Canada's two major DBS providers signals: Bell TV and Shaw Direct, as well as more than 200 of Canada's television channels.
Telesat's Anik F2 carries a KA band spot beam payload for satellite Internet access for Wildblue users in the United States and Xplornet users in Canada. The KA band system uses spot beams to manage bandwidth concerns, linking to multiple satellite ground stations connected to the Internet.