Es'hailSat showcases advanced capabilities at CABSAT 2025 in Dubai
DOHA: Es'hailSat, the Qatar Satellite Company, is exhibiting at the annual CABSAT exhibition, taking place in Dubai from May 13 to 15.
The leading regional platform brings together stakeholders from the broadcast, content delivery, digital media, and satellite sectors across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
At the event, Es'hailSat is showcasing its Playout and Media Services, as well as its Tier-4 certified 50,000 sqm Teleport facility in Doha, which features to two co-located high-powered satellites - Es'hail-1 and Es'hail-2 - positioned at the key video hotspot of 25.5 / 26 East.
Commenting on the company's participation, President and CEO of Es'hailSat, Ali Al Kuwari, said: "CABSAT is an important event in our calendar where we have the opportunity to meet with our customers and engage with potential customers and technology suppliers."
"Es'hailSat is delighted to showcase our Tier-4 Certified Teleport facility that hosts VSAT hubs as well as Playout and Media Services and supports our two high-powered satellites, bringing further value to our premier broadcasting and telecommunication customers, governments and enterprises alike," he added.
Es'hailSat provides satellite, broadcast, teleport and managed services from its base Doha, Qatar. With over 15 years of experience, the company serves broadcasters, telecommunications providers, enterprises, mobility applications and government clients across the Middle East and North Africa.
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Qatar Tribune
14-05-2025
- Qatar Tribune
Es'hailSat showcases advanced capabilities at CABSAT 2025 in Dubai
DOHA: Es'hailSat, the Qatar Satellite Company, is exhibiting at the annual CABSAT exhibition, taking place in Dubai from May 13 to 15. The leading regional platform brings together stakeholders from the broadcast, content delivery, digital media, and satellite sectors across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. At the event, Es'hailSat is showcasing its Playout and Media Services, as well as its Tier-4 certified 50,000 sqm Teleport facility in Doha, which features to two co-located high-powered satellites - Es'hail-1 and Es'hail-2 - positioned at the key video hotspot of 25.5 / 26 East. Commenting on the company's participation, President and CEO of Es'hailSat, Ali Al Kuwari, said: "CABSAT is an important event in our calendar where we have the opportunity to meet with our customers and engage with potential customers and technology suppliers." "Es'hailSat is delighted to showcase our Tier-4 Certified Teleport facility that hosts VSAT hubs as well as Playout and Media Services and supports our two high-powered satellites, bringing further value to our premier broadcasting and telecommunication customers, governments and enterprises alike," he added. Es'hailSat provides satellite, broadcast, teleport and managed services from its base Doha, Qatar. With over 15 years of experience, the company serves broadcasters, telecommunications providers, enterprises, mobility applications and government clients across the Middle East and North Africa.
Al Jazeera
16-02-2025
- Al Jazeera
Es'hailSat 2024 Year in Review
Es'hailSat, a leading satellite operator in MENA, has marked an eventful year in 2024, displaying significant advancements and expansions across multiple service domains. From satellite Occasional Use (OU) services, Playout & Media services to Direct-to-Home (DTH) offerings, VSAT solutions, and Mobile Satellite Services, Es'hailSat has continuously demonstrated its commitment to delivering high-quality satellite communication solutions. This article provides a comprehensive review of the company's achievements in 2024 which has been a year of growth for Es'hailSat. Direct-to-Home (DTH) Services Es'hailSat's extensive range of Direct-to-Home (DTH) bouquet of satellite services caters to a diverse clientele, providing high-quality broadcast solutions tailored to the unique needs of each customer. Es'hailSat's DTH services are leveraged by Rotana, facilitating seamless contribution capacity and channel distribution across the region. SNRT Morocco taps into Es'hailSat's robust Ku-band transponders, ensuring reliable and efficient DTH capacity for its broadcasts. Qatar Media Corporation (QMC) also enjoys Es'hailSat's bouquet services, supporting a wide array of channels catering to the local audience. Al-Kass, a prominent network, relies on Es'hailSat to maintain and renew its bouquet contract, ensuring uninterrupted and high-quality broadcasts for its viewers. In an exciting expansion, Es'hailSat added over ten (10) new TV channels to its DTH network on Es'hail-2 satellite in 2024. This expansion includes the Algerian news channel TV A3, along with five prominent radio stations —Chaine1, Chaine3, Radio Internationale, Radio Coran, and Ifrikia FM. Each of these channels brings unique content, enhancing the variety and quality of programming available to Es'hailSat's audience. This strategic addition underscores Es'hailSat's commitment to providing comprehensive and high-quality broadcast solutions, catering to a wide spectrum of viewers in the Middle East and beyond. By integrating these channels, Es'hailSat continues to solidify its position as a leading satellite service provider, dedicated to meeting the evolving demands of its clientele with reliable and diverse broadcasting capabilities. Playout & Media Services Es'hailSat's Playout & Media Services offer advanced solutions for TV channels, combining satellite distribution with innovative playout technology based out of their state-of-the-art Teleport in Doha. These services enable content creators to deploy TV channels rapidly, providing peace of mind and maximum audience reach. During 2024, Es'hailSat enabled comprehensive disaster recovery playout solutions, ensuring continuous and reliable broadcast services for Al-Rayyan TV channel. Their advanced infrastructure and dedicated support guarantee that broadcasts remain uninterrupted during emergencies. This service maintains service integrity, further solidifying Es'hailSat as a trusted partner for the channel. In October 2024, Visit Qatar and Es'hailSat, the Qatar Satellite Company, signed an agreement to launch a dedicated Visit Qatar television channel. The channel is powered by Es'hailSat which includes both the Playout Service as well as the Satellite & Uplinking Services to distribute the channel across the MENA region. The channel showcases Qatar as one of the world's leading travel destinations. Hotels throughout Qatar will feature the channel on the TV of all guest rooms, giving visitors the opportunity to explore the country's tourism offerings and stay updated on ongoing events. Occasional Use (OU) Services Es'hailSat has been at the forefront of providing tailored satellite Occasional Use (OU) services, meeting the diverse needs of its broadcast clients. For instance, Al-Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) leverages Es'hailSat's flexible and reliable satellite transmission capabilities for its OU needs. Similarly, Al-Kass benefits from seamless operational support, ensuring uninterrupted broadcast requirements. Furthermore, Es'hailSat extends its OU services to Qatar TV, guaranteeing high-quality broadcast solutions that meet the network's demands. New clients like Al-Rayyan and Rotana are also tapping into Es'hailSat's robust OU services, designed to manage varied broadcasting schedules and special event coverage with precision and efficiency. Through these strategic partnerships, Es'hailSat displays its commitment to providing superior satellite communication services, bolstering the media infrastructure in the region. Their ability to offer timely and reliable satellite capacity for occasional use highlights their pivotal role in the satellite communication industry, supporting the dynamic needs of broadcasters across the Middle East and beyond. Recent Certifications Es'hailSat has achieved Tier 4 certification of its 50,00 sqm Al Ghuwayriyah Teleport in Doha under WTA's Teleport Certification Program. The program provides transparent, independently verified standards as a means for teleports to differentiate themselves and for customers to choose the price-performance level suitable for their applications. Furthermore, the Occupational Health and Safety Management System of Es'hailSat's Teleport was also successfully assessed and awarded with the ISO 45001:2018 certification which covered hosting, broadcasting, VSAT, transmission and satellite telecommunication services offered from the state-of-the-art facility. Industry Engagement As a part of Es'hailSat's commitment to industry development and international collaboration, Es'hailSat partnered with the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) of Qatar to host the ISRMM Conference at its state-of-the-art Teleport facility in September 2024. This prestigious event attracted delegates from around the world, fostering global dialogue on satellite and regulatory advancements focusing on Spectrum monitoring and management. The conference not only highlighted Qatar's leadership in satellite technology but also significantly as a hub for innovative telecommunications and attracting future investments and partnerships in the sector. VSAT Services Es'hailSat provides robust VSAT services on its Es'hail-1 satellite to a diverse array of customers, ensuring high-quality and reliable communication solutions. Notably, Es'hailSat leased additional VSAT capacity to Viasat and signed a transponder contract with GulfSat Communications from Kuwait. Moreover, Es'hailSat provides OU VSAT capacity and teleport services to VIPs, demonstrating its versatility in meeting different clients' needs. The Ministry of Interior (MOI) benefits from a comprehensive managed VSAT solution for their communication vehicles, utilizing the Es'hail-1 Ku-band. This solution includes the integration of 3G and 4G systems from Ooredoo, offering seamless connectivity. Additionally, Es'hailSat is engaged in discussions with Qnexus, aiming to continue providing extensive VSAT services beyond the current agreement period. Overall, Es'hailSat's VSAT offerings are characterized by their ability to deliver tailored communication solutions, combining satellite capacity with terrestrial networks to enhance operational efficiency for various clients. This commitment to providing exceptional service ensures that Es'hailSat remains a trusted partner in the satellite communication industry. MOU with Nilesat In a significant development, Es'hailSat signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Nilesat from Egypt to explore future opportunities. This agreement focuses on leveraging satellite capacities and teleport services to enhance their offerings, ensuring both companies can meet growing demands and provide superior service to their clients across the region. Mobile Satellite Services Es'hailSat also provides a range of comprehensive Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) via its partnership with Inmarsat, to its customers, ensuring reliable and efficient satellite communication solutions. One significant service involves the activation of BGAN (Broadband Global Area Network) systems, which offer high-speed data and voice connectivity across the globe. This service is crucial for various operational needs, particularly for mobile and remote communication. Additionally, Es'hailSat supports GSPS (Global Satellite Phone Service) activations, facilitating seamless voice communication for users in remote locations where traditional networks are unavailable. These activations have been instrumental for key clients such as Vodafone and Ooredoo, allowing them to extend their service offerings to their customers. Es'hailSat also caters to specialized requirements by providing tailored satellite solutions, ensuring that clients like the Ministry of Interior and the International Media Office have access to robust communication tools. Their services include managed solutions combining satellite capacity with terrestrial networks like 3G and 4G, enhancing the overall communication infrastructure for their clients. By partnering with industry leaders and renewing long-term contracts, Es'hailSat continues to deliver high-quality satellite communication services, addressing the evolving needs of their diverse customer base. 2024 – A Year of Growth Es'hailSat's achievements in 2024 reflect its unwavering commitment to excellence and innovation in the satellite communication industry. From expanding its DTH network to signing strategic partnerships and providing comprehensive VSAT and MSS services, Es'hailSat has solidified its position as a leading satellite operator. As the company continues to evolve and adapt to the dynamic needs of its clients, it remains dedicated to delivering superior satellite communication solutions across the Middle East and beyond. The year 2024 has been a testament to Es'hailSat's strategic vision and operational excellence, setting the stage for continued growth and success in the satellite communication industry, and supporting Qatar National Vision 2030.
Al Jazeera
25-12-2024
- Al Jazeera
Taiwan struggles to reconcile climate ambitions and chip manufacturing
Hsinchu, Taiwan – A crane bird flies across a silent rice paddy, the water slowly trickling in the background. It is a tranquil and stereotypical image of an East-Asian countryside. Little seems to suggest I am just a few kilometres removed from one of the hearts of the global economy. This is Hsinchu, a small city close to Taipei in Taiwan. It is what you could literally call the Silicon Valley of the world. Just a few kilometres from the tranquil rice paddies, gargantuan buildings rise from the ground, air conditioning humming permanently over the bustle of traffic. These are the factories that build the silicon chips or semiconductors that make our smartphones, computers and even artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT work. Yet these two worlds, tranquil nature and high-tech manufacturing, are increasingly clashing on the island. Taiwan is the world leader in the production of computer chips. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) is the largest chip manufacturer in Taiwan. By the third quarter of 2024, it had conquered 64 percent of the global semiconductor market, according to research firm Counterpoint. The second-biggest player, South Korea's Samsung Foundry, represented only a distant 12 percent. Chip manufacturing makes up an outsized part of Taiwan's economy and contributes 25 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the island. In 2020, the market value of TSMC was equal to the size of half of Taiwan's economy, as per a study at the time. Few countries seem to be able to outdo the Taiwanese at manufacturing chips. However, this semiconductor success is also raising sustainability issues. Chip manufacturing consumes large amounts of water and energy, and emits emissions through chemicals. TSMC alone consumes about 8 percent of the island's electricity, according to a recent report by S&P Global Ratings. 'After the petrochemical industry, the electronics industry is the biggest emitter of Taiwan,' Chia-Wei Chao, the research director at the nonprofit Taiwan Climate Action Network and adjunct assistant professor at the National Taiwan University, told Al Jazeera. 'Semiconductors are also a rapidly growing industry, which is worrying, to say the least.' This is even bringing them into conflict with the farmers that Taiwan's chip factories are located near. In 2021, during a drought, the Taiwanese government halted irrigation of farms, so the huge chip factories could use the saved water. Today, anxiety is growing over how solar farms, which are needed to power chip manufacturing, might take up farmland. 'There seems to be a lack of systemic analysis on the environmental effects on semiconductor production,' Josh Lepawsky, a professor of geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, told Al Jazeera. 'That's a grave mistake.' 'Crazy' AI While the water use of chip factories has garnered much international attention in the past few years, on the island itself, it is considered old news. Semiconductor manufacturers are already recycling most of the water they use, and the government has invested in more water infrastructure since the drought of the past years. The Taiwanese today are worrying about the industry's energy use. Artificial intelligence achieved large breakthroughs in the past years, driven by the large language models of US companies like OpenAI and tools such as ChatGPT. This revolution was powered by chips that were mostly manufactured in Taiwan. The AI hype, in turn, is causing Taiwan's huge chip factories to go into overdrive. 'The AI market is becoming more crazy than ever,' Lena Chang, a campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, told Al Jazeera. 'Because of it, the energy use of the semiconductor industry is becoming a major problem for Taiwan, because of increased emissions and even possible shortages.' In all the craziness, the climate might have been forgotten. 'The main goal is now to develop AI and the related supply chains,' Chang said. 'Energy is not a big concern. The government should be more active in developing sustainable energy.' Slow renewables One key issue here is the Taiwanese energy market. Taiwan is currently phasing out its nuclear reactors. Construction of solar and wind energy, however, has been lagging. 'Taiwan still heavily relies on fossil fuels,' Chang said. 'More than 80 percent of our energy supply is from gas and coal.' Just 11 percent of Taiwan's energy supply between September 2023 and August 2024 came from wind, solar and hydropower, according to the Energy Administration. A declining nuclear share contributed another 5.6 percent. The Taiwanese government in 2016 set a target of 20 percent renewables by 2025, which it will almost certainly miss. Offshore wind, for example, is lagging behind government targets. In 2018, Taiwan awarded 5.7 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind to be installed by 2025. By 2024, the government had downgraded its targets, and hoped between 2.56GW and 3.04GW would be ready that year. 'Offshore wind went quite well until 2022. But then, for the following auction rounds, Taiwan tried to get both cheap energy and high localisation of the supply chain,' Raoul Kubitschek, the managing director of the renewable energy consultant NIRAS Taiwan, told Al Jazeera. Wind energy is particularly running into Taiwan's localisation rules. Taiwan's government is demanding that very high percentages of its wind turbines and other components be produced locally. This local production, however, is not picking up fast enough. 'You cannot build a new supply chain this fast,' Kubitschek said. 'Taiwan only constructed its first commercial-sized offshore wind farm in 2017. It takes time to create a domestic wind energy industry.' Solar energy is also running into barriers. Rooftop solar has been largely saturated on the island. Larger-scale solar farms, in turn, are controversial because of land disputes. Groups like farmers are afraid they will encroach on farmland, leading to protests and lawsuits. Chia-wei Chao is hoping to turn this around. He leads some pilot projects where farmers themselves place solar panels on their land. 'We shouldn't force farmers to sell their land or stop farming to install solar panels,' Chao told Al Jazeera. 'We should allow a combination of the two. We need to regain the trust of farmers.' For now, however, Taiwan's energy market remains reliant on fossil fuels. All the while, the semiconductor industry's energy use is rapidly increasing. That is an issue for semiconductor manufacturers. They are being pressured by their customers into going green. Apple, a prominent buyer of TSMC chips, wants its large suppliers to commit to 100 percent renewable energy use by 2030 – a far-off target given current trends. Taiwanese electricity prices are also increasing rapidly, and the threats of power outages are growing. According to Kubitschek, broader changes are needed in Taiwan's energy market, including relaxing localisation policies, reforming permitting and looking at the role of Taipower, the government-owned energy company. However, Kubitschek says such reforms might be far off. Greenpeace, in the meantime, wants to bypass this conundrum and demands that companies like TSMC build their own sustainable energy installations. CHIPS Acts Taiwan's issues with semiconductor manufacturing are not unique, however. Since COVID-19 and the associated shortages in critical goods such as semiconductors, governments like the United States and the European Union want to make more chips locally. Both the US and EU passed legislation to support domestic chip production, although US President-elect Donald Trump has harshly criticised his country's CHIPS and Science Act. Both the US and the EU are now running into similar issues as Taiwan. In the US, for example, new chip factories are being placed in areas prone to drought. TSMC is investing $12bn in a factory in the desert regions of Arizona. That is bad planning, according to the Memorial University of Newfoundland's Lepawsky. 'The [US] CHIPS Act didn't consider water use. That will cause problems in the future.' In Europe, worries about chip manufacturing's environmental effects are also increasing. In 2022, the EU announced that it wanted to increase Europe's share of the global semiconductor manufacturing market to 20 percent by 2030, prompting TSMC and Intel to unveil plans for new plants in Germany and Poland (Intel has since postponed its plans as it seeks to rein in heavy financial losses). According to a study by the research firm Interface, if Europe were to achieve its 20 percent production target, the continent's semiconductor emissions would rise eightfold, clashing with other policy programmes like the Green Deal. Chip gasses Researchers are also worrying about another type of climate effect of semiconductors. Besides water or energy use, semiconductor manufacturing produces greenhouse gases. During the complex manufacturing flow, the processes themselves can produce their own emissions. These are called scope 1 emissions, according to Emily Gallagher, the director of the Sustainable Semiconductor Technologies and Systems (SSTS) programme of the research institute Imec in Belgium. TSMC is one of the companies that is a member of Imec's SSTS programme. 'During the etching process, we use plasma to selectively remove material to build minuscule structures in chips. The etch process often uses gasses such as the fluorinated chemical CF4,' Gallagher told Al Jazeera. 'CF4 has a global warming potential that's 6,500 times larger than CO2.' According to calculations by Imec, for an average chip, roughly 10 percent of the production emissions are scope 1. Reducing these will mean adapting the highly complex semiconductor manufacturing procedures by increasing process efficiency to increase utilisation of the gases, by replacing existing gases if possible and by reducing their use. 'For now, scope 1 emissions do not dominate the emissions associated with semiconductor manufacturing,' Gallagher said. 'But as factories decarbonise their energy supply, its importance will increase dramatically.' Back in Taiwan, energy use is still on everyone's mind. Taiwan is at the core of the global AI hype, not just producing chips, but even making the systems that cool the hot-running servers on which AI models are trained. Whether the local energy market can handle that remains to be seen. 'We need more ambitious goals and the means to accomplish them', Chang said. 'There's a real concern now about power shortages. Large power users such as semiconductor companies need to take responsibility.'
