As part of the agreement, PanAmSat will create a two-way broadband pipeline employing spacecraft in the company's Atlantic Ocean Region fleet. The advanced satellites will link AT&T Latin America's Point of Presence (POP) in Lima, Peru to PanAmSat's Atlanta, Ga., teleport and operations center, which is linked directly to the Internet backbone.

"The demand for AT&T Dedicated Internet Access has exploded recently and continues to increase month over month," said Jos� Gandullia, president of AT&T Latin America in Per�.

"We needed to find a quick, cost-efficient and reliable way to meet our customers' current and future needs. This service furthers our ability to provide our business customers with the same high-quality service they are use to receiving from AT&T Latin America, as well as prepares us for future growth outside of Lima."

PanAmSat recently completed a tour of Latin America, offering demonstrations of the SPOTbytes DVB service to dozens of Internet service providers and telecommunications companies in Peru, as well as Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela.

"The SPOTbytes DVB tour truly enabled us to demonstrate the strengths of the service, which is why AT&T Latin America has selected PanAmSat to gain the fastest, most reliable and cost-efficient connection to the U.S. Internet backbone," said Alvaro T. Gazzolo, PanAmSat's senior vice president, Atlantic Ocean Region.

"Using SPOTbytes DVB enables AT&T Latin America to accommodate, with minimal investment and effort and unparalleled flexibility, the strong demand from ISPs and corporations who want access to the wealth of Internet content in the United States."

Service Features

Building upon PanAmSat's SPOTbytes line of Internet services, SPOTbytes DVB delivers Internet traffic in a digital video broadcasting (DVB) transport stream, offering low startup and recurring costs, flexible and scalable bandwidth, as well as support for multiple points of presence (POPs).

SPOTbytes DVB offers unparalleled versatility and cost-efficiency for ISPs and telecommunications companies with diverse backbone access requirements. SPOTbytes DVB highlights include:

• Low-cost equipment, consisting of small antenna (0.90 - 1.2 meters), DVB receiver and router.
• Multiple-channel-per-carrier transmission platform, delivering IP traffic to multiple customers via a single, shared carrier.
• Scalable bandwidth ranging from rates as small as 64 Kilobits per second (Kbps) up to 45 Megabits per second (Mbps).
• Support for multiple POPs, segmenting total bandwidth allocation between receive sites, each with the capability for dynamic allocation depending on bandwidth requirements.
• Increased service options, using either a duplex satellite or hybrid link to the U.S. backbone, offering the choice of employing PanAmSat spacecraft for two-way transmissions or sending small Internet requests over an alternate terrestrial path and returning the bandwidth-intensive Internet content via satellite.