Actually hotbird is quite interesting. Gone the days of big spacecraft. Now they build smaller ones and co-locate them at the same orbital location.<br /><br />Optus plan this with D1, it will cover the 11700 to 12200 band and will co-locate with C1. They will then cover 11700 to 12750 on both polarities.<br /><br />Its quite common. Earlier this year when I was moving the TT&C for Measat in Malaysia, they are launching Measat 3 to co-locate with Measat 1. Only this satellite is single polarity and extended band, so with both M1 and M3 they will have two polarities (M1 and M2 are currently single polarity) as well as little extra bandwidth with extended on M3. Its another Boeing (Hughes) satellite.<br /><br />Hear for M4 they are looking at India and thet Measat will be there first commercial customer - that sounds scary to me!