# Intelsat Americas-7 Dead?



## moonman (Oct 27, 2004)

I have read in anoter forum, that this bird has died in orbit this A.M.
which affects mostly cable, especially TimeWarner cable. Can anyone confirm?
see link for channels that may be affected. :nono2: 
http://www.lyngsat.com/ia7.html


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

I caught that over on dishretailer, too. Seems that Starband is also affected. They have transponsers 9 & 16.

I just noticed that G4TechTV is on IA-7 - but E* must be getting that feed elsewhere, OR, the bird is back online.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

The bird is not back online and is not expected back online.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Any known cause?


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

Haven't heard about the cause, except they consider it "lost".


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## jwhite (Apr 8, 2002)

If you have Starband, Clusters 2, 50 and 189 are affected. Luckly I am on 4 which is on GE-4.

Jay


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

Most, if not all of the C band traffic has moved to Intelsat Americas 13 at 121w.

At least one Ku mux moved to bandwidth purchased by Intelsat on Horizons 1 at 127w.


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## Mike Richardson (Jun 12, 2003)

That sucks 

Didn't another bird die this year? Loral or something?


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

Telstar 4 died. Not this year, but recently. Intelsat Americas 8 is scheduled to launch in December to replace it, but there is speculation that it might be sent to 129w instead of 89w. It would be tough decision as ABC and CBS are primary customers in the 93w and 97w area and IA 5 and IA 6 are quite busy on the weekends.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Computer Weekly has an article about the outage:

http://www.computerweekly.com/artic...&liChannelID=7&liFlavourID=1&sSearch=&nPage=1


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## Darkman (Apr 16, 2002)

----------------------------------------

BREAKING NEWS: INTELSAT'S IA-7 SATELLITE HAS FAILED

Intelsat has declared IA-7 "a total loss" according to Ramu Potarazu, the Chief Operating Officer for Intelsat. They are not giving any reason for the failure as of yet. At approx 0222 EST Sunday 11.28.04, they had an electrical short of some kind on Bus 1 and eight minutes later lost telemetry to the spacecraft according to Intelsat engineer Kevin Maloy. There were no station-keeping maneuvers being done at the time, Maloy said. IA-7 was located at 129 degrees West longitude.

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## Darkman (Apr 16, 2002)

Another post from another forum:
(finally after 24 hours - official release from Intelsat)

Intelsat Reports Loss of Intelsat Americas™-7

Pembroke, Bermuda, 28 November 2004

Intelsat, Ltd. today said that its Intelsat Americas™-7 satellite experienced a sudden and unexpected electrical distribution anomaly that caused the permanent loss of the spacecraft on November 28, 2004 at approximately 2:30 am EST. Consistent with existing satellite anomaly contingency plans, Intelsat has made alternative capacity available to most of its IA-7 customers, many of whom have already had their services restored, reflecting Intelsat's intention to ensure a smooth transition for its customers. Intelsat is working with Space Systems/Loral, the manufacturer of the satellite, to identify the cause of the problem. The satellite, which operated at 129° West, was launched in September 1999 and covered the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Central America, and parts of South America. The satellite was self-insured by Intelsat.

The upcoming launch of the IA-8 satellite, currently scheduled to occur on December 17, 2004, will provide 36 Ku-band, and 24 C-band, equivalent transponders to the Intelsat North American fleet and help mitigate the impact of the permanent loss of IA-7.

Under the terms of the Transaction Agreement and Plan of Amalgamation for the sale of Intelsat, dated as of August 16, 2004, among Intelsat, Ltd., Intelsat (Bermuda), Ltd., Zeus Holdings Limited, Zeus Merger One Limited and Zeus Merger Two Limited, the total loss of the IA-7 satellite would give the purchasers the right not to consummate the acquisition of Intelsat. The purchaser, Zeus Holdings Limited, has advised Intelsat it is evaluating the impact of the IA-7 failure.

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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Well, as a Starband customer the past two days have been interesting to say the least. Since Starband could give no prognosis of when they might get everyone back up and running I have made a switch to Comcast Cable Internet (humbug). I just got it up and running and am quite impressed. I suspect SB will be losing (not loosing) a bunch of their old customers to this mess. I have been with them since the beta test days and have installed many systems as a dealer. It's a real shame.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> The satellite was self-insured by Intelsat.


Ouch


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Good to have ya back Richard


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Thanks Steve. Good to be back.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

So, how do they get the corpse out of the way - if they can't do station-keeping, it's gonna wander way too far for anything else to occupy that slot won't it?


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

Telstar 4(which died a similar death) has now wandered about 30 degrees west of where it was.


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## kenglish (Oct 2, 2004)

Those "slots" are pretty big....maybe 100 miles square for a geo-sync satellite. The dead birds will usually move to an inclined orbit, due to the impact of gravity and radiation, and will move east or west as well. The "TT&C" people just have to be a bit more aware of the "space junk" and occasionally make adjustments for it.

Like one of the experts at Weber State told me, though...."It's still like having two rabbits running around on the desert and wondering if they will collide". It can happen, but isn't extremely likely. Fortunately, the movements of everything up there are predictable (with tracking info and big computers).


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## ADent (Jul 7, 2002)

Here is site that describes what happens to drifting sats: http://members.aol.com/geostat2/geo2.htm .


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

StarBand is going to suffer because of this. No way can they get 20,000+ subs moved over to another satellite in any real time before they lose the subscribers to other service providers or get fed up. The thing is if there is a big cost with starting up with another provider then that may prevent many from doing so especially if they already have a big cost in their hardware. Businesses cant afford to put up with this and will simply have to switch service providers. Hopefully the dial-up alternative will save many of the customers.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

StarBand is looking at its options as the satellite broadband company continues work getting customers impacted by the loss of the Intelsat Americas 7 satellite during the weekend back into service.

The Intelsat satellite experienced a sudden electrical distribution anomaly that caused the permanent loss of the spacecraft. The anomaly impacted about 20,000 StarBand customers, the company said late Monday. (For SkyREPORT's initial coverage, see: http://www.skyreport.com/viewskyreport.cfm?ReleaseID=1537.)

In a correspondence sent this week to installation and retail help, StarBand said it's working to arrange both long term and short term solutions to get customers back up and running and as quickly as possible. Options include providing temporary dial-up access, DSL access and securing additional satellite capacity from other providers, the company said.

StarBand said Monday it's talking with Intelsat and other satellite companies about gaining extra orbital capacity. Also, the company has capacity aboard the SES Americom AMC-4 satellite, and customers that received service from Intelsat Americas 7 and want a dish re-point to AMC-4 will be handled on a pre-approved basis only, the company said.

Also in the note, StarBand said it will not bill or collect monthly service fees from customers impacted by the Intelsat satellite loss. Pre-paid customers will receive a refund for the time during which they had no service, the company said. Also, StarBand said it will temporarily suspend creation of new accounts due to the satellite capacity loss.

www.skyreport.com (used with permission)


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Starband is going to have a very hard time IF there are options available for customers. As mentioned above, I made the switch to cable internet. I have had SB since the Beta test days and probably will not go back (well, maybe I will keep it at my office). If many other customers have options look for a massive exodus.


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

They would need to offer something very special to those customers to make up for the issues to keep a lot of those customers preventing them from going to another service provider.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

I just got an automated call from Starband stating that Intelsat-7 is back on line. No details. I guess time will tell.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

From Starband... 


> Do you believe in miracles?
> Intelsat-7 Satellite Update 12/2/04
> 
> StarBand is delighted to announce that Intelsat has just informed us that the IA-7 satellite is on its way to being operational. Many StarBand users are already back in service.
> ...


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Was this the solution by Friday that StarBand was talking about?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

No, they had no idea that they would get the satellite back. The Friday "solution" was a temporary dial up for customers to use until they can be reaimed at their other satellite, one that really doesn't work well in Florida at all. I think that the recovery of Intelsat 7 will help them retain many customers that would have been lost in florida. I finally reached the point where I refused to do installs to the other location and would also have refused to do repoints to that location to "fix" this problem.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

From here, it looks like the report may be correct. I am getting Starband like signals on Tps 4, 9 and 20.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Well, my Starband should be up tomorrow, so as soon as it appears I will let everyone know. Now I have to decide whether to stay with Comcast or Starband. It would be a slam dunk if not for all the pop ups with Comcast. Maybe I can turn one of my three or four SB dishes sitting around here into an FTA system.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Starband, and Intelsat 7 are now back and operational. Posted using Starband. Way to go guys.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

Richard King said:


> Starband, and Intelsat 7 are now back and operational. Posted using Starband. Way to go guys.


Yeah, looks like Starband is the only user now.


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Maybe some good came out of this after all.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

It's about time SB had their own satellite. :lol: I just wonder how many customers they will lose (not loose) because of this mess. I will be one from the looks of things since I signed on to Comcast. I guess I could reinstall the dish at my office and use SB there, but I would rather solve the challenge of a long WiFi link from Comcast at my home to the office.


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## chaddux (Oct 10, 2004)

Richard King said:


> It's about time SB had their own satellite. :lol: I just wonder how many customers they will lose (not loose) because of this mess. I will be one from the looks of things since I signed on to Comcast. I guess I could reinstall the dish at my office and use SB there, but I would rather solve the challenge of a long WiFi link from Comcast at my home to the office.


You had StarBand even though it sounds like you were in a Comcast-served area? Isn't satellite internet significally slower and enormously more expensive than other forms of broadband?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

I have SB because I was a beta tester for them well before DSL or cable internet was available here. Being a beta tester I had it for free for quite some time. When they started charging I was grandfathered in at $49 per month and since I already owned the hardwar I kept it. This really forced the issue for me, so I made the change. Now, if I can get the WiFi connection between here and the office all will be well with the world and SB will go away completely. I keep mentioning this thinking someone here will design the system to do this for me.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Richard, have I mentioned that a plane ticket will get me there for you. 

I have family down in Boca - haven't seen them in a long time.


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## chaddux (Oct 10, 2004)

SimpleSimon said:


> Richard, have I mentioned that a plane ticket will get me there for you.
> 
> I have family down in Boca - haven't seen them in a long time.


 :lol:


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