Hong Kong – Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat) announced the successful launch of a new DVB-S2 Direct-to-Home (DTH) platform on AsiaSat 4 to distribute television and radio programmes to audiences in Australia and New Zealand. This new platform is the first DVB-S2 distribution platform launched to serve the entire Australasia region. From the orbital location of 122 degrees East, it currently hosts some 30 television and radio services, broadcasting programmes in Russian, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Cambodian, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Telugu languages and dialects. The new platform is operated by Teleport Access Services (TAS) in Taiwan. Through TAS’s state of the art teleport facilities, the platform provides signal downlink and turnaround, uplinking and encrypted services for broadcasters. Dish antennas as small as 60-70 cm and 1.1-1.2m can be used in parts of Australia and New Zealand respectively.