In the second installment of a two-part interview, Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen discusses the long-term prospects for Solaris Mobile, the operator’s joint venture with SES, the potential for future hosted payload deals and why the operator has finally decided to join the Space Data Association (SDA).

 

Satellite News: What drove Eutelsat’s decision to join the Space Data Association (SDA)?

 

De Rosen: Safety and integrity of the space environment and radio frequency spectrum is vital. Beyond our own individual actions as a company, Eutelsat wants to be involved in any association that advances a responsible attitude to how space is used. Joining the SDA adds a new strand to this approach, which includes our membership in the Global VSAT Forum (GVF) and the Satellite Interference Reduction Group (SIRG). Our intention is to bring our own experience on ground and satellite to the table and to collaborate on improving the safety and efficiency of satellite operations.

 

 

De Rosen: I believe in a long-term future for Solaris Mobile and I think the patience of its long-term shareholders, SES and Eutelsat will be rewarded. The fact the project is taking several more months than planned is not relevant. I believe we should not pass up on the opportunity to be part of a market as vast and as dynamic as the mobile market, and that satellites can supplement terrestrial bandwidth and fill the gap where there is no terrestrial coverage. We have confirmed with SES that we are in discussions with investors that are interested in including Solaris in their development plans. The S-band payload on W2A represents 2 x 15 MHz of additional bandwidth that we believe could be put to good use for mobile services.

 

De Rosen: We are not fixated on mobile TV for S-band, but are open to other applications if this is the way the mobile market develops. We have always said that, in order to extract Solaris’ full benefits, the satellite needs to be combined with a Complementary Ground Component (CGC), and that Solaris would remain a satellite infrastructure provider contracting capacity to third parties that invest in the CGC.

At the end of the day, it’s important for us to have a business that is solid, and that can be a success for many years.

 

De Rosen: Hosted payloads are a sign of the growing maturity of our business both in technical capability and the optimization of resources. When I think about hosted payloads, I think about partnerships. Eutelsat was a pioneer in developing partnerships with key players, including RSCC, Nilesat and ictQatar. We also believe in the framework of partnerships in regards to hosted payloads. However, sharing is like marriage – it is not an easy thing to do and can take time to organize. These partnerships will grow in number and we expect to be part of this trend.

 

De Rosen: We have six satellites to launch during the period 2011 and 2013 that will renew and increase our in-orbit capacity by 25 percent including Ka-Sat. You can expect to us to work on driving our revenues by focusing the three pillars of Eutelsat’s growth – video, broadband and multi-usage.

I think pay-TV will continue to be a sweet spot in the video market, with recent research forecasting that satellite pay-TV revenues will exceed cable in 2011. Pay-TV offers are becoming more sophisticated, adding HD, special event 3-D and video-on-demand services among others. Matching this with bandwidth and quality service at each of our video neighborhoods will be a core activity. Complementing DTT coverage after analogue switch-off is also an opportunity that drove the launch of our Fransat service two years ago in France and has given rise to other offers such as Italy’s TivuSat that broadcasts from our Hot Bird neighborhood and has generated sales of more than 900,000 boxes.

   In the data market, there is an unabated need for satellites to provide cost-efficient Internet backbone and GSM backhauling services, and these sorts of applications are driving our strategy to increase resources over Africa, Central Asia and further East.

We see no shortage of opportunities and will always choose the most rewarding ones.

 

De Rosen: My vision is not to do things differently from the way Giuliano did them, but to do them as well he did. That’s a tall order. We are in a changing world. I don’t see the pace of change slowing down. This means we need flexibility and agility to identify and seize the right opportunities for the satellite business. This is crucial to success. We are not a national monument. We are a company that must permanently adjust to the needs of our customers, anticipate the market, and be creative in a competitive landscape.