ProtoStar Ltd. (ProtoStar) and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and PLDT’s subsidiary, Mabuhay Satellite Corporation (Mabuhay) announced the signing of several agreements covering multiple areas of cooperation. Key aspects of the agreements include: an exchange of certain Mabuhay assets for an equity position in ProtoStar; expanded use of Mabuhay’s Subic Space Center for the operation and control of satellites; an option for PLDT to make further investments in ProtoStar and an agreement for PLDT to lease C-band transponder capacity on ProtoStar’s recently-launched ProtoStar I satellite. But an earlier announcement concerning Protostar’s Orbital Location services agreement with the Intersputnik International Organization of Space Communications of Russia, prompted Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company to speak out. The agreement is to provide for Ku and C band services from the ProtoStar I satellite in Asia from a position at 98.5° East Longitude under the INTERSPUTNIK-98.5ECK ITU filing. AsiaSat, as a close neighbour of ProtoStar-I, made a number of clarifications including that its AsiaSat 2 satellite is in operation and AsiaSat 5 is being constructed as the AsiaSat 2 replacement due for launch in 2009, at 100.5°E. “AsiaSat has filings with the ITU for its satellites operating and planned at 100.5°E dated as early as 14 November 1991 giving AsiaSat a very senior priority of the use of our filed frequencies.” Continued AsiaSat’s statement, “ProtoStar-I, launched on 7 July 2008 is presently located at the vicinity of 98.5°E, has not completed the orbital coordination process with its neighbours. In accordance with the procedures stipulated by the ITU Radio Regulations a satellite operator with a lower priority filing in the unplanned Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) is required to seek coordination with neighbouring satellite operators that have higher priority filings. Completion of this coordination process is required in order to provide protection to the filings with higher priority.”