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138 TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Leading Digital TV Industry Publication — 01-02/2015 —
Yang Tao is
Chinasatcom's
Deputy General
Manager
TV Satellite Operator COMPANY REPORT
Chinese Satellite
Provider
Expanding
Every TV channel in China that is
broadcast via satellite utilizes the sat-
ellites from national satellite provider
Chinasatcom. Up until now, the domes-
tic Chinese market was good enough
for this operator but they have begun
expanding into the international mar-
ket albeit very carefully and in very
small steps. To learn more about this
we paid a visit to Chinasatcom’s head-
quarters in Beijing, China.
In the 1980‘s, Chinasatcom’s prede-
cessor company took over the task of
providing China with satellite services.
Back then it was mostly telephony
and data traffic. The first TV channels
started broadcasting in the 1990s and
in 2001 Chinasatcom (China Satellite
Communications Co., Ltd.) was of-
ficially founded as a subsidiary to the
national Chinese space authority China
Aerospace Science. Chinasatcom oper-
ates the fleet of CHINASAT satellites
and is also involved with the operator
(headquartered in Hong Kong) of the
APSTAR satellites.
Chinasatcom’s headquarters can be
found in the enormous Xibeiwang IT
park northwest of Beijing. Many other
IT firms such as the computer manu-
facturer Lenovo and the Chinese In-
ternet search engine Baidu can also be
found here.
Chinasatcom erected their control
center on their grounds right next to
the satellite dishes from the China Me-
teorological Authority. Chinasatcom‘s
fleet of satellites are all controlled with
more than 30 very large 15-meter
dishes and many more smaller satel-
lite dishes.
We met up with Yang Tao in the main
building. He is the Deputy General
Manager in the Sales Department and
from him we learn more about China-
satcom: „All Chinese satellite TV chan-