Fifteen delegates from the Andean Community, a South American customs union comprised of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, arrived in Luxembourg today for a five-day training session with global satellite operator SES.
The training visit from the delegates and General Secretariat of the Community, a free trade bloc within South America, is being held at SES headquarters in Betzdorf as part of the company's strategy to provide worldwide training with a view to bringing together broadcast communities and growing the future digital ecosystem.
SES-10, the new Ku-band satellite with a specifically designed beam, is due to launch new year to provide coverage to Latin America and the Caribbean, representing a unique proposition for the Andean Community's telecommunications operators, broadcasters and service providers.
"The training will enable member countries of the Andean Community to optimise SES-10's coverage," explained Gerhard Bethscheider, Managing Director at SES subsidiary SES Techcom Services, which will be handling the training. "By interacting directly with our experts, the delegates will develop their knowledge and gain a deep insight into the workings of a satellite. These sessions will also open the doors for potential future partnerships between the Andean Community and SES in areas like disaster response communications and e-health".
The training will reflect a similar structure to that held last September, whereby the group of participants will begin with an introductory overview of the satellite communications industry before being taken through a series of sessions covering the lifecycle of a satellite.
In this respect, participants will explore all technical, operational, business and regulatory matters before concluding the training with a hands-on exercise testing their newly-acquired knowledge in the design of a value proposition and business model for a satellite network.
"We pride ourselves on going beyong the technical provision of satellite capacity to enable our customers and their end-users to utilise our technlogy, bringing social and economiy benefits to both the Andean Community and Latin America," concluded Bethscheider. "This is one of a number of sessions we plan to host in the near future to bring together broadcast communities in different corners of the world and help grow our ecosystem".
