Hellas Sat

Hellas Sat is an Athens, Greece-based GEO telecommunications satellite operator founded in 2001, operating as the Hellenic Republic's national satellite operator and a subsidiary of Arabsat (the Arab League's satellite consortium, which acquired majority ownership from Inmarsat in 2012) — providing Ku-band and Ka-band satellite capacity for direct-to-home (DTH) television broadcasting, broadband internet, VSAT enterprise networks, and government communications across a service area spanning Southeast Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and South Africa.

Hellas Sat's fleet centers on the Hellas Sat 2, 3, and 4 geostationary satellites positioned at 39°E longitude — a prime orbital slot for simultaneous coverage of the Balkans, Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa, enabling the company to serve multiple distinct regional markets from a single orbital location. The 39°E position is particularly valuable for pan-European DTH broadcasting where satellite dish alignment for Southeastern European viewers makes it complementary to the dominant 19.2°E (Astra) and 13°E (Hot Bird) slots that serve Western Europe.

The DTH broadcasting customer base includes Greek television broadcasters, regional pay-TV platform operators in the Balkans, and Middle Eastern TV distribution. Greek viewers have historically used Hellas Sat capacity for free-to-air Greek-language broadcasting, while the satellite's South African spot beams have supported VSAT enterprise connectivity and government networks in the region. Broadband VSAT services are delivered through small dish terminals for enterprise and SME customers lacking fiber access.

Hellas Sat 3 (launched 2017, built by Thales Alenia Space on the Spacebus-4000 platform) added significant high-throughput Ka-band capacity and expanded the South African coverage footprint. The acquisition by Arabsat positioned Hellas Sat within the broader Arab satellite ecosystem, enabling capacity coordination with Arabsat's 26°E fleet and leveraging Arabsat's distribution channels across the Arab world.

The company competes with Eutelsat at 7°W (West Africa), Intelsat at 34.5°W, and increasingly with Starlink's expanding enterprise service for remote site broadband.