Our 2012 Satellite Executive of Year Revealed

I would like to congratulate Tom Choi, CEO, Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) who I am proud to name as our Satellite Executive of the Year for 2012. As always, it was a great competition and we had a terrific set of nominees, which included Khalid Balkheyour of Arabsat, Mary Cotton of iDirect and Charlie Ergen of Dish Network. Choi is the first winner to come from Asia – a region predicted to be a powerful growth engine for satellite companies during the upcoming years. While ABS is headquartered in Asia, the company generates its revenues from a number of different regions, demonstrating Choi’s expansive approach for the company.

Choi has built ABS at an impressive pace and has been at the heart of some of the most talked-about deals in our sector over the last few years. I often think “game changer” is an over-used term, and that is probably the fault of editors like me, who perhaps use it a little too much. However, the deal with Boeing and Satmex to acquire satellites based on electric propulsion was a deal where the term “game changing” was entirely appropriate.

We are getting ever closer to the SATELLITE 2013 show, where we will present Tom Choi with the Satellite Executive of the Year award. In our interview with Choi, we cover all aspects of the ABS story going back to 2006. He talks about his vision, not just for ABS, but also for the satellite industry as a whole. Like executives from many FSS operators have previously stated, Choi seeks lower costs for building and launching satellites.

It gets me to thinking about how much lower can costs get and what is realistic in terms of launch prices going forward. How much lower can the price of satellites get? How fast is the technology evolving here? This is one of those age-old arguments that seem to have been going on since the beginning of time and shows no signs of abating. I have heard many FSS executives point to the wireless industry and how dramatic the advances of technology have been there and wonder why the satellite industry has been a tad slow in comparison. However, it is difficult to compare apples with apples. Sometimes it takes players like ABS to shake up the market with innovation. Certainly, Boeing’s deal with ABS/Satmex could have that impact, and in recent conversations with European satellite manufacturers Thales Alenia Space and Astrium Satellites, both have talked about bringing their own satellite platform based on electric propulsion to the market. It seems as though the market has an appetite for these types of satellites.

Choi also spoke about how regional operators could work together so they could ultimately share the same economies of scale as the likes of Intelsat and SES, who have the luxury and the savvy to bulk-order satellites and launches. He expressed an interest to work with other smaller operators and in the same way they have with Satmex. This is a less heralded, but perhaps, equally significant part of the deal with Boeing and SpaceX – the savings made by operators teaming up. It is great to see smart regional operators driving change in our industry in this way. The partnership model is often discussed and we have seen examples of it before. For example, traditional FSS rivals SES and Eutelsat teamed up to create Solaris Mobile, and Intelsat and Telenor Satellite Broadcasting (TSBc) have maintained a strategic relationship for many years. It will be interesting to see whether there will be further examples of new partnerships, we may even see one or two announcements in this regard at SATELLITE 2013. Choi believes these types of business bonds could be the way forward for regional operators and only time will tell if others agree.