Telesat, led by former
New Skies Satellite CEO Dan Goldberg returned to the upper echelon of fixed satellite services (FSS) operators following the acquisition of
Telesat Canada by
Loral Space and Communications in October 2007.
The company's 12-satellite fleet is far smaller than its larger rivals but gives Telesat a strong North American presence, a stronger footprint in international markets and a global teleport and fiber infrastructure. Goldberg expects demand for high-definition (HD) services will be the key to strong growth in the next 12 months.
Satellite Today: How are you going to use your experience as CEO of New Skies Satellite to drive Telesat?
Goldberg: At New Skies, I gained a familiarity with the markets and customers that Skynet has been servicing over the years. As a result, the Skynet business was in no way alien or foreign, even though legacy Telesat had little or no experience in these markets. My familiarity with these markets was helpful as we planned the integration of
Skynet and Telesat and, I believe, will be useful as we look for ways to expand our business.
Satellite Today: What do you see as the other drivers for Telesat’s business?
Goldberg: We are going to see significant growth over the next 12 months driven by the fact that we are launching three new satellites. When I look at two of those satellites, Nimiq-4 and Nimiq-5, they are already 100 percent sold out to
Bell TV and
EchoStar, who need the capacity for the introduction of additional advanced television services. Probably the most important advanced services these satellites will be used for is HDTV so, in that regard, HD is driving our growth today. Beyond that, we are launching another new satellite, Telstar 11N, which will be in the Atlantic Ocean region. That is an all Ku-band satellite serving North America, Europe and Africa as well as the Atlantic Ocean in terms of maritime capacity. That will also drive some growth. The demand drivers for T11N are principally services to, from and within Africa and the maritime and aviation services market.
Satellite Today: Is there a mobile TV opportunity for Telesat?
Goldberg: Right now it is a very nascent market. Telesat has a significant portion of our revenues coming from North America. It is not the case today that mobile TV is ubiquitously and widely available in North America. I think that mobile television will come to be just that, ubiquitously and widely available. I think consumers will adopt it quickly and consume it quite a bit. For FSS players, I think the most obvious near term opportunity is to use our fleets to create an overlay infrastructure for the terrestrial distribution network. Satellites really do provide an excellent infrastructure to distribute video out to the fixed terrestrial infrastructure, really the tower infrastructure, and from there it will go to the handsets.
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