Thuraya-3 is ready for starting commercial activities

Thuraya-3 and relating ground network are fully ready for starting commercial activities effectively from 9th June 2008, which heralds a new phase in the Company's expansion and growth towards Asia. The geosynchronous satellite, which was launched by Sea Launch in January this year, underwent a rigorous technical testing on all its Ground, Space and other related systems to ensure high service quality prior to commercial launch.

The company's expanded coverage towards Asia-Pacific, including such major markets as China, Australia, Japan, Korea and Indonesia, will double the current market size and population covered by the Thuraya system, bringing two more billion people under its extensive footprint. The border-to-border coverage provided by Thuraya in each country under its footprint will empower people in rural and remote areas as well as those at sea or beyond the reach of terrestrial networks by providing them a reliable access to modern voice and data communications. Continued coverage expansion provides existing subscribers great advantage and flexibility to use their satellite phones in a larger footprint of nearly 170 countries.

Parallel to technical readiness which has been undergoing since 2007, the commercial infrastructure has also been put in place in time, with highly promising distribution and marketing partnerships established with strong networks in such key markets as Australia, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mongolia and Macau. Several agreements for ThurayaMarine have also been signed up with specialised maritime distributors which started service provisioning in the Asia-Pacific from last week.