MUMBAI: Pakistan is gaining use of a defective Boeing 601 satellite and plans to use it to provide commercial telecommunications services starting in early 2003, spacenews.com has reported.

Pakistan renamed the Palapa C1 satellite as Paksat-1, its first geostationary satellite, and hopes to begin commercial services by early next year. The satellite has already been moved to its new orbital slot at 38° East Longitude.

Palapa C1 was launched in 1996 for PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia and is now owned by Hughes Global Services, which seeks new users for satellites unable to fulfill their originally intended missions.

Hughes reportedly has a five-year $30-million contract with Pakistan to develop the potential of Paksat-1's orbital slot. Paksat-1 has over 30 C-Band and Ku-Band transponders, and is expected to provide commercial services including Internet backbone services, remote Internet access, business communications, video, audio and data services and thin route telephony.