The London EC4-based Maxat Ltd has opened a broadcast teleport at The London Telehouse in Docklands (CI No 1,438). A wholly-owned subsidiary of Cables & Radio, itself part of France Telecom SA, the company was formed in 1988 to take advantage of the growing market for European satellite services. It now aims to provide competitive data broadcast services for business and finance. It will distribute its customers’ sound, vision and data signals by satellite, gathering the signals, transmitting them to the bird and delivering them to a specified location. It has direct access to France Telecom’s transponders as well as to other satellites, such as PanAmSat and Telecom 2. Clients include television broadcasters, organisations providing news or sports coverage and companies wanting private television and data communications services. It is the third teleport in London: the other two belong to British Telecommunications Plc and Mercury Communications Ltd. Maxat says it picked Telehouse because of availability of on-site back-up services, high level of security of the building against both intruders and damage, its existing computing and telecommunications facilities and its roof, which is specially designed for satellite antenna mounting. The location is also conveniently near City clients.
