Asian telco SingTel prides itself on progressive strategies towards satellite. It has recently launched its ST-2 satellite, a joint-venture project with Taiwanese telco Chunghwa Telecom, which aims to give SingTel even more coverage in its core broadcast, maritime and oil and gas markets.
With most of the capacity already taken on this satellite, however, the operator is looking to develop alternative capacity on other spacecraft — namely, an upcoming ST-3 satellite. Titus Yong, SingTel’s vice president of satellite business, talks about the operator’s plans beyond ST-2.
VIA SATELLITE: How much capacity have you sold on the ST-2 satellite now that it has launched?
Yong: Most of the capacity on the ST-2 is more or less sold right now. It has been sold to customers in Singapore and India. A big chunk has been sold for maritime services, as well as some into the Middle East and Afghanistan.
VIA SATELLITE: Considering that most of the ST-2 is sold out, has there been a situation where you have had to turn customers away due to lack of available capacity?
Yong: We have to be selective in terms of talking to our better customers. ST-2 is a high-quality, high-powered satellite. We don’t turn customers away, but we can move them to other satellites if they are more appropriate. We also have our ST-1 satellite, which has a lifetime of another three to four years and we are able to bring some budget price capacity into the market where we can serve lower-end markets as well. We also have an investment in APT, so we have the possibility of customers taking capacity on those satellites.
VIA SATELLITE: What lies beyond ST-2 in your efforts to increase your capacity options?
Yong: We are now very committed to our ST-3 satellite. The ST-3 program is being done in collaboration with Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS). Our program with them involves us getting capacity on ABS-1 soon. A lot of capacity on ABS-1 will be used for SingTel. We are also starting long-term leases with another provider for capacity into Central Asia and the Middle East, and we are in discussions with other Middle East satellite operators to develop capacity partnerships and offer end-to-end IP-based satellite services into Africa.
Other capital expenditure programs we are looking at involve launching our play-out services and HD channels. We have just launched an end-to-end play-out service for our own IPTV head-end and we are launching an Asian Ethnic content channel, which is a 24/7 channel that is done in-house. This has all come about because of our investment in more broadcast capability.
We are also putting a lot of capital expenditure investment into value-added services. We recently launched a managed voice service on IP links. We are probably the first in the world to offer a codec service that is most efficient at 6 Kbps. We are looking to develop IP prepaid voice services over satellite that will be delivered to maritime as well as branch offices.
We are also spending a lot of money in delivering our own software for maritime services, as well as an integrated management system that would allow us to have end-to-end management of all devices and satellite links. This way, we can provide customers with a portal so they can have true visibility of these services.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
