Satellite communications services provider Intelsat has announced the successful launch of its Intelsat 36 and 33e satellites into orbit. The company confirmed signal acquisition of both satellites following the launch from French Guiana last week.

Prior to the launch Intelsat told ITWeb Africa that both satellites will serve the African market.

Stephen Spengler, CEO of Intelsat says, "Having consistent and affordable access to informative and entertaining content is vital to a community and its citizens. Intelsat 36 will enable MultiChoice to extend high definition channels throughout the region via one of Africa's premier video neighborhoods."

The Ku-band payload on Intelsat 36 was built to support MultiChoice while the C-band payload will provide in-orbit resilience for Intelsat's video content distribution neighborhood at 68.5° E according to the company. Intelsat 36 will be collocated with Intelsat 20.

Spengler says the second of the two satellites, Intelsat 33e, marks another significant milestone for the company. "Our first high throughput satellite, Intelsat 29e, is already in service and exceeding our customers' expectations in the Americas. With Intelsat 33e, customers operating in EMEA and the Asia Pacific regions will now be able to leverage Intelsat EpicNG's differentiated capabilities and greater efficiencies to grow their businesses and deliver enhanced value to their customers."

The Intelsat 33e satellite was manufactured by Boeing. It will replace Intelsat 904, which will be redeployed.

Brian Jakins, Africa Regional Vice President of Sales has vowed that the dual launch would be followed by several others for the region in the near future.

"Beyond this launch we have another launch happening in February next year which will be the third of our Epic range satellites. We have about seven satellites planned over the next four years particularly to serve that technology phase that we need to bring. There is a big drive on our side to have this complimentary platform in place. We are also an invested partner with One Web which is working on low constellation satellites which will bring lower latency, higher speeds and greater capacity. We are primed for having a fully interoperable geo earth orbiting satellite constellation. There is a lot that is happening from our side into this infrastructure."