Swe-Dish Satellite Systems believes its latest contract with the U.S. Defense Department for mobile satellite communications equipment will act as a strong reference to gain other deals in the military satellite sector. Lars Jehrlander, CEO of Swe-Dish told Satellite News, “One of the key strategies for Swe-Dish Satellite Systems is to keep growing in the defense area. Of course, continuing to work with the Defense Department gives you probably the best reference you can have in the world. This order is really confirmation on that we have been doing the right things so far.”

The deal, worth $20 million, sees Swe-Dish supply equipment enabling the transmission of video, data and voice content from remote or temporary established sites anywhere in the world. Jehrlander is confident the company can grow revenues in the defense market. He commented, “We are expecting to gain many contracts in the defense area. We came initially from the broadcast/commercial side and we have been around for more than 10 years delivering systems to broadcasters. Hopefully, we will continue to do that in the years to come. We see this is as being a more mature market, while on the defense side, we actually see an opportunity for large growth. We are working with defense customers around the world, not only in the United States, but also in Europe and Asia.”

It is not the first time Swe-Dish closed a deal with the Defense Department. It won a similar contract in 2002, and U.S. forces use its terminals. Jehrlander hopes the company will continue to pick up business from the Defense Department, because there are many business opportunities for Swe-Dish to pursue within the military arena. In particular, deals with European defense organizations and ministries could be growing sources of revenues for the company. It already works with organizations such as Danish Defense, the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV).

Jehrlander said, “There is an overall change on how defense organizations are looking at themselves. They are going from having large organizations aimed for territorial defense of their home countries, to having an agile and highly capable force aimed for peace-keeping/peace-forcing operations overseas. If you look at what is happening throughout Europe, Sweden, the United Kingdom and nearly all the other European countries, [they] are members in a worldwide peacekeeping effort and there are many changes going on. You see people going to Kosovo and Afghanistan. It is not just the United States. It is really a lot of other countries as well from Europe [and the rest of the world].”

Benefits of Satellite Communications

Swe-Dish is shooting to prominence with what it claims is the smallest broadband satellite terminal in the world, the IPT suitcase. Jehrlander believes military organizations around the world are beginning to see the true value of satellite-based solutions. He said, “What is happening right now is that defense customers around the world are beginning to realize what satellite communications can be used for. Traditionally, satellite communications have been used for big broadband backbones for logistical purposes. What we can see now is that people are beginning to realize that satellite communications can be used for a lot of other things, including tactical [applications]. The systems we provide are small, easy-to-use, and have broadband capabilities. This means that you can push the use of satcoms down in the command structure and give people access to broadband communications that they have not had before.”

The deal with the Defense Depart-ment is a major boost, and the company hopes to develop its mobile satellite equipment portfolio. In terms of how it can improve its product portfolio, Jehrlander sets out a couple of areas where the company can improve.

He said, “Our smallest terminal weighs 39 kilos and is the smallest on the market, but we are challenging ourselves to do it lighter. We have been asked whether we can improve the capacity of the terminal and we actually are coming up with a new release, which enables our customers to use the suitcase up to 4 Mbps. The first version was 2 Mbps, but now it is up to 4 Mbps, so we have doubled the capacity.”

Jehrlander also expects the company to have a strong 2005 in terms of overall revenues. He said, “We won’t see major growth in revenues in 2004, compared to 2003. 2003 was a special year because we had the Iraqi campaign that was boosting our sales to both broadcast and military customers. We are predicting growth in 2005 compared to 2004 in terms of revenues.”

—Mark Holmes

(Hampus Delin, SWE-DISH Satellite Systems, e-mail, Hampus.Delin @swe-dish.se)