Under the contract, Gascom, the telecoms arm of Russia's energy giant Gazprom [RTS: GAZP], will lease C-Band geostationary transmission capacity to Network Teleport, an innovative and independent provider of satellite telecommunications services, through the Russian Yamal-202 satellite.
"Leveraging particularly on this satellite footprint, Network Teleport Italia will be able to keep alive a solid communication link between Yamal-202's European and Asian coverage, based on iDirect technology," Gascom said in a statement, but gave no mention of the sum of the contract.
The contract will strengthen Gascom's position on the international market. The company currently receives 25% of its revenues from foreign clients, the statement said.
Gascom currently has three Yamal telecommunication satellites, designed and built jointly with the Energia space corporation. The company intends to launch another two satellites by late 2008.
