In March 2003, BSS entered into a contract with Boeing Satellite Systems for the procurement of the MEASAT-3 satellite. MEASAT-3, a Boeing 601 HP satellite, will join the existing MEASAT-1 and MEASAT-2 spacecraft in the MEASAT system.

Scheduled for launch in a couple of years time, MEASAT-3 will be co-located with MEASAT-1 at 91.5 degrees East longitude, and will employ 24 C-band and 24 Ku-band transponders. Each will provide 36 MHz of bandwidth over a 15-ear service life.

Its high powered C-band global beam covers more than 100 countries, which extends from Japan all the way through to Africa. Its Ku-band payload has been designed to provide high-powered spot beams, which offer flexible service options for the development of data services and DTH applications in India, Malaysia, Indonesia and China.

An official release informs that MEASAT pioneered the development of Direct-To-Home (DTH) satellite services to 0.6M antenna in South East Asia with the launch of the MEASAT-1 and MEASAT-2 satellites in 1996. These satellites were specifically designed to cut through the region's difficult heavy tropical rainfall climate.

MEASAT-1, located in the orbital slot of 91.5° East Longitude, employs 12 C-band transponders, covering East and South East Asia, and 5 Ku-band transponders that offers flexible switching coverage over India, Malaysia and Philippines.

MEASAT-2, located in the orbital slot of 148° East Longitude, has up to six C-band transponders, with footprints that extend from East Australia to South, North East and South East Asia and seven high-powered spot beam Ku-band transponders focusing on Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam and Eastern Australia.

The company's VP (sales and marketing) Paul Brown-Kenyon was quoted in the release as saying, "The launch of MEASAT-3 ensures MEASAT can continue to serve the growing requirement of our existing customers while providing additional capacity for fully integrated video, data and VSAT services.

"Our new satellite significantly enhances our fleet, providing a high-powered Ku-band beam focused exclusively over South Asia with an EIRP up to 53 dBW. With MEASAT-3 co-located with MEASAT-1 (and the MEASAT-1 replacement to be launched no later than Q4 2007) we will also be in a position to offer our customers natural redundancy with their traffic carried across two satellites".

MEASAT claims to be a leading supplier of satellite services to Asian DTH operators and hosts one of the strongest neighbourhoods of South East Asia broadcasters and telecommunications providers.