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; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Ear ...

owned by SES World Skies, part of SES S.A. (and formerly GE Americom, 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 by ...

). Launched in 1999, from

Centre Spatial Guyanais The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...

, ELA-2 by Ariane 44LP H10-3. It provides coverage to North America,

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...

, Caribbean. Located in a geostationary orbit, 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 as GE-4, GE Americom's fourth

A2100 The A2100 is a model of communications satellite spacecraft made by Lockheed Martin Space Systems. It is used as the foundation for telecommunications payloads in geosynchronous orbit, as well as GOES-R weather satellites and GPS Block IIIA satelli ...

hybrid C-band and Ku-band satellite. The C-band payload was home to national television networks 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 served the ''direct-to-home'' (DTH),

VSAT A very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) is a two-way satellite ground station with a 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 kbit/s up to 16 ...

, business television and

broadband Internet In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

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

FTA FTA may refer to: Arts and media * ''The Faery Tale Adventure'', a computer game * Festival TransAmériques, an annual dance and theater festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada * Free The Army tour, the F.T.A. Tour or F.T.A. Show, an American anti-V ...

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