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Snapshot from Australasia Satellite Forum 2015



C-band vs IMT debate not so esoteric

The debate over whether some of the spectrum currently reserved for satellite use should be handed
over for mobile use might seem somewhat esoteric but, as a panel we convened at our Australasia Satellite
Forum this week showed, both the direct and indirect consequences could be quite profound.
Later this year, some 190 spectrum regulatory representatives will meet at the World Radiocommunications
Conference in Geneva to consider proposals for changes to global spectrum allocations
with the most contentious threatening to transfer of a swathe of C-band satellite spectrum to the mobile
or “IMT” lobby.

The mobile lobby’s case is simple: the runaway commercial success of a product that desperately
needs new spectrum as it advances beyond its 3rd generation through the 4th and 5th generations.
They say they can make a more economically efficient use of spectrum than the satellite operators,
who are now largely migrating to new bands, leaving legacy bands underused.

But in turn, the satellite and broadcasting lobbies want to keep their spectrum. C-band might be a
legacy technology, but it has a massive installed base in developing nations who lack other forms of
telecom infrastructure and it has a specific technical quality that recommends it. It tends to resist the
rain-fade experienced in other bands and thus, makes it the continuing platform of choice for satellite
TV delivery in tropical countries.

As Bob Horton, the former Australian telecom regulator, who now works as a satellite lobbyist
told our panel, finding an industry consensus might not be so easy.

In Asia Pacific for example, nations often coalesce as a voting bloc in international standards fora.
But on the spectrum issue, Asian and Pacific nations diverge.

Japan and Korea are quite pro-mobile, while the tropical nations of ASEAN and the Pacific nations
are on the satellite side of the debate. Horton estimates that only a slight majority of Asia Pac
nations favour the existing spectrum plan, suggesting a significant minority are pressing for change.
Similar fault lines are in evidence elsewhere across the world.

Previous WRCs have worked on a consensus model, aiming to accommodate as many interests as
possible, often by demarcating optional regional or sharing plans. But as Horton pointed out, the
consensus model in international telecoms regulation has broken down in recent years. The 2012
WCIT meeting in Dubai saw a split when African and Arab nations, with Chinese and Russian support,
attempted to rewrite the telecom regulations underpinning the International Telecommunications
Union by expanding their ambit to Internet management and governance. The US and other
advanced nations balked when this attempt won a vote and effectively walked out. The result: most of
Western world subscribes to minimalist telecom regulations dating from pre-Internet 1988 days while
the developing world prescribes a much more interventionist role for government in Internet policy.

A similar split at the WRC talks could prove negative. If C-band spectrum allocations became fragmented
or restricted to small markets, manufacturers in the sector may just well give up, consigning
availability and innovation in tech kit to the scrapheap. Similarly, fragmentation in the IMT allocations
could have a similar impact in mobiles, deterring cellular manufacturers from supporting the
new spectrum allocations.

For its part, Australia supports a “mixed” approach that concedes to some but not all of the mobile
claims on satellite spectrum. Panellists this week suggested that this could represent a middle
path compromise model.

But Australia represents just one vote among 189. Tiny nations such as Tuvalu and Kiribati have
the same voting rights as giant supply-side players in the telecom economy such as Japan, Korea and
the US. Both the satellite and mobile lobbies have been throwing immense resources at prosecuting
their respective cases across the world this past year or two. The stakes are enormous.

Grahame Lynch

Measat makes play for NewSat assets

Malaysian satellite operator Measat has made an official offer to buy all or some of the assets of struggling
Australian satellite firm NewSat, CommsDay has learned. Measat is one of a number of companies
to lodge a bid with NewSat administrators to takover the company and is amongst the favourites
to succeed.

Measat already has significant ties to NewSat's Jabiru satellite programme. The Jabiru-1 satellite, which was
due to launch next year, was being built to carry a Measat payload of 18 Kuband
transponders that would provide back-up services and support its core direct-to-home markets in
Malaysia and India. As part of the original US$197 million transaction, NewSat agreed to locate the
satellite in an orbital slot held by Measat at 91.5°E.

NewSat also has its own hosted payload on the Measat-3b satellite. The payload, known as Jabiru-2, provides
216MHz of Ku-band capacity across Australia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and the
Solomon Islands.

Measat is one of a number of companies that have been provided with detailed information on
NewSat's finances and assets. Others include a number of global satellite operators as well as potential
financiers.

NewSat went into administration last month after failing to come to terms with financiers of its
A$620 million Jabiru-1 satellite project. Administrators PPB Advisory of Sydney have been representing
NewSat in both the Federal Court of Australia as well as the US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
They have so far been successful in obtaining temporary orders that prevent its creditors from cancelling
contracts as it looks to find either financing to complete the project or a buyer for all or parts of
the company.

PPB Advisory practice leader Marcus Ayres, one of two NewSat administrators, told a recent creditor
meeting in Melbourne that retaining existing contracts was key to negotiating a “capital solution”
that would allow the company to recommence business and complete its Jabiru-1 satellite launch. He
said the alternative – a sell-off of the company's assets – was not in the best interests of creditors or
shareholders.

In an earlier submission to the US bankruptcy court, Richard Brail, MD and head of the technology,
media and communications advisory practice at New York investment bank Peter J Solomon
Company, told the court that there was a “reasonable prospect of achieving additional financing” to
revive the Jabiru-1 satellite project.

He told the court that PJSC had already contacted over 30 potential investors, comprised of both
financial and strategic investors. A decision on the company's future is expected to be made as early as
this weekend, according to some sources.
Geoff Long

Sting in the tail for Telstra’s Pacnet buy as major security breach comes to light

Telstra says that recent acquired subsidiary Pacnet had its security breached by unknown attackers
earlier this year. The attack took place just a couple of weeks before Telstra purchased the firm for
US$697 million – but Telstra only found out immediately after completing the transaction on 16 April.

Telstra said that the compromised Pacnet networks were not linked to its own, and that there’d
been no evidence of untoward activity on Telstra’s network. However, the firm is now notifying Pacnet
customers, which include large Australian federal government customers like the Australian Federal
Police, of the breach.

“We announced our intention to acquire Pacnet in December last year and we
formally settled on that on the 16th April. Just after we settled, we were advised by
Pacnet that their corporate IT network – the network that Pacnet uses for its
email and back-of-house systems – had experienced a security vulnerability, which
had enabled third-party access to their corporate IT network,” said Telstra global
enterprise services group executive Brendon Riley. “Pacnet had been working on
that matter, both the understanding and the rectification of it. And as soon as we
were advised on that, we also took some immediate action as the new owners of
the business to conduct our own detailed assessment of their environment; both
to ensure the vulnerabilities were addressed, and to put in place additional monitoring
and incident response.”

The attackers – who have not made contact with Telstra – exploited an SQL
vulnerability to upload malicious software to the Pacnet corporate network and gained complete access
to it. However, Telstra said there was no evidence of any data actually having been taken from
Pacnet’s customers, and that the network was now secure.

One question hanging over the security breach is why Telstra wasn’t made aware of it prior to closure
of the deal, during its due diligence process. “The due diligence process ran from December
through till the February timeframe. You’ve got to remember that we were still competitors, technically,
so the due diligence went as far as it could but... deep, detailed analysis of networks and network
operations wasn’t one of the things that we were able to do,” said Riley.

“It would have been good to know about it prior to completion, but [Pacnet] were managing it and
dealing with it, so from their perspective they felt they were absolutely doing the right thing. And as
soon as completion occurred, we were advised of it.”
Petroc Wilton

Defence to tap private sector for satellite capabilities

The Australian Defence Force has a growing demand for satellite capacity and is likely to engage more
closely with the commercial sector for its future needs, according to Commodore David Greaves, who
commands the ADF's defence strategic communications group.

Delivering a keynote address on the second day of the Australasia Satellite Forum
in Sydney, Greaves said that a defence whitepaper currently being prepared
by the federal government would outline the ADF's likely technology needs as well
as available spending.

“Before the end of this year we expect the Australian government to release a
new defence whitepaper that will no doubt change the future requirements and
set a path for satellite communications,” Greaves told the forum.

He flagged a greater involvement from industry as the defence satellite requirements
grow. The ADF already has partnerships with a number of private sector
operators, most notable Optus, which launched a defence payload back in 2003. It also has had contracts
since with Intelsat, Iridium, and Inmarsat, among others.

Greaves said the growing demand for capacity mirrors demand in the commercial sector as well as
defence forces in other countries. However, the use of satellite is particularly important in Australia.
“Our growing appetite for satellite capacity stems from being surrounded by two oceans. While
these oceans provide us with great beaches, it also provides us a national security challenge of requiring
a two ocean presence,” he explained. Other requirements have included support for ADF operations in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Sudan and Sinai, as well as the recent cyclone and earthquake in Vanuatu and Nepal respectively.

“We've come to realise the demand for high capacity, reliable and readily accessible satellite communications
is growing and often the only way to maintain effective, seamless command and control
of ADF operations around the globe. More to the point, we realised we could not support this capability
alone. We need the help of our partners in both the commercial industry and our allies to help
us in that capability,” Greaves said.

The defence organisation itself is also undergoing significant reform. One recommendation soon
to be implemented is the abolition of the defence materiel organisation and the capability development
group, while at the same time creating a new capability acquisitions group.

“The reforms are moving to a leaner, smart buyer model that better leverages industry, is more
commercially oriented and delivers value for money. The model is reliant on an enhanced relationship
with industry, which would provide expertise in managing projects in the acquisition phases,” he
said.

He said he hoped the new approach to capability development would help to get a number of current
projects back on track, most notably a new satellite ground station in Western Australia that had
been listed as a “project of concern” due to delays. The ground station is to be used to connect to the
Wideband Global Satellite service and was originally approved in 2009.

He said in future he expected the ADF would find innovative ways to provide military satcom capability,
in particular ways that use resources more efficiently. “We will continue to find systems that
allow our capability requirements to ebb and flow in an efficient and cost-effective manner, with a
strong focus on the ability to surge our usage requirements on short notice for operational contingencies,”
he said.
Geoff Long

NBN considering higher speeds for satellite service

NBN is considering offering faster speeds for its long-term satellite offering, beyond the 25Mbps service
that will initially be available once its satellite is launched and service commences next year. The
company will also consider dedicated business products such as symmetrical services, according to
satellite program director Matt Dawson.

Speaking at the Australasia Satellite Forum in Sydney, Dawson said there were a range of initiatives
that the company was considering to boost the capabilities of the service. “Certainly higher
speeds are something we'll be looking at down the track,” he told the forum. “Higher speeds are inevitable
but right now we're just keen to get the first phase underway.”

He also noted that ground station partner ViaSat was investigating a range of technologies including
proxies, acceleration techniques, and caching that he said would make a difference to the end
user experience.

Speaking on a panel alongside Dawson, ViaSat program manager Erwin Hudson said that his company's
experience in the North American market had shown that the volume of data consumed was
as important as speed. However, he said that users disliked capped plans, leading to significant research
into delivering services without caps.

One recent approach is to offer a certain quote of ‘priority data’ after which users will get a ‘best
available’ service but will not be charged extra for going over a limit. “I think we'll see other ISPs
evolving more toward a priority data scheme rather than a cap scheme,” he said.
Another area of R&D has been moving data closer to the customer, with ViaSat currently experimenting
with a number of schemes.

“Content delivery networks try to push content out toward the edge of the network and I think
what people are going to do is take the next logical step and that is to push pre-positioned content
not just to the edge of the network but literally to the CAT 5 port at the back of the modem right in
the customer's home,” Hudson said.

SKILLS SHORTAGE: Meanwhile, Skybridge CEO Michael Abela raised the issue of skilled resources
that will be needed for a rollout expected to cover up to two hundred thousand users.
“That's a lot of services to deliver over a relatively short timeframe in what is a big country which
has very poor logistics infrastructure,” Abela said. “For us it’s about what we need to ramp up to get
to that point of delivery.”

Dawson acknowledged the installation challenge, but he was hopeful that workers currently installing
and activating connections for the fixed wireless service would be available when the satellite
services needs to be rolled out.

“It has been a challenge for the installation industry, Skybridge and others, to maintain a workforce
since the interim service ceased sale in late 2013,” Dawson told the forum. He said under
NBN’s current contract with Ericsson, which subcontracts to both Hills and Skybridge, installations
and activations are done for both fixed wireless and satellite services. “So there's a big workforce there
now activating the fixed wireless services and then of course next year the long term service will kick
on,” Dawson said.
Geoff Long

Fletcher raises prospect of NBN satellite replacing copper for USO

Parliamentary secretary to the communications minister Paul Fletcher has raised the question of whether NBN satellite services could ultimately fulfil the Universal Service Obligation, replacing copper in providing voice telephony to remote Australia. Such a substitution could potentially save industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

“The policy question is whether we should be using NBN satellite capacity to supply backhaul to support voice services in remote Australia as well as the broadband services which NBN has been designed to offer,” Fletcher told the Australasia Satellite Forum in Sydney. “Is it ever conceivable that the NBN satellite could be used to directly deliver voice services under the USO?”

The USO mandates that all Australians have reasonable access, on an equitable basis, to a standard voice telephony service
regardless of location. Fletcher noted that until recently legislation had imposed this obligation on Telstra as universal service
provider, which used the legacy copper network to provide the service with a capped connection charge; an industry-wide levy
was used to help it bear the resulting losses for maintenance and provisioning in far-flung areas not economic to service.
But given the billions of dollars being spent on the NBN rollout across Australia, Fletcher questioned the logic of “a separate
USO subsidy being paid so that people in regional and remote areas, whose NBN broadband services come over fixed
wireless or satellite, will continue to receive a legacy voice service on a separate network using decades-old technology.” He said
that one potential reform direction might be to decouple the USO funding from Telstra’s legacy network. “Instead, the subsidy could be provided to the extent necessary for the provision of specified services over any suitable network, and this could in turn allow
Telstra’s legacy network in the last 7% to be withdrawn from service over time.”

Switching USO voice service delivery to NBN’s long-term satellite service, anticipated to come online next year, could completely obviate the need to maintain the old copper in rural areas – and remove a major cost from the industry.

Fletcher’s comments come as the Bureau of Communications Research within the Department of Communications is looking at unpicking the implicit cross-subsidy inherent to NBN’s own commercial model, and exploring ways to instead openly fund NBN’s regional rollout via an industry levy process.

One option being canvassed is repurposing the existing USO collection arrangements.

CAVEATS: But any satellite substitution within the USO is likely to be some time away. Fletcher noted that it was as yet not clear whether a voice service over satellite would be regarded by Australians in the last 3% of premises as a satisfactory substitute for their existing voice service, with latency just one possible issue.

“Will consumers in areas served by NBN Co’s LTSS continue to want a voice telephony service over the copper infrastructure... or will we see a significant number of consumers instead choosing a voice service delivered as part of their NBN satellite package?” he said.
“Frankly, we do not yet know and we will not know until well after the long term satellite service has been launched and is operational.”

Fletcher also said that while satellite was the lowest-cost option for serving remote areas, it was not cheap in an absolute sense, with the capital cost of NBN satellite services per premise approaching four times the cost of FTTN. Finally, he emphasised that – having just completed prolonged renegotiations with Telstra on its NBN deal at the end of last year – the federal government was in no particular hurry to revisit the agreement between itself and Telstra regarding the latter’s responsibilities as universal service provider.
Richard van der Draay

Optus plans closer ties between satellite, terrestrial networks
Optus will increasingly integrate its satellite network capacity with its terrestrial network in Australia as a way to compete against a wave of new entrants in the satellite sector and the expected downward pressure it's likely to have on prices. Speaking at the Australasia Satellite Forum in Sydney, Optus Satellite VP Paul Sheridan said that its satellite operation was one of only one or
two globally that is backed by a major telecommunications carrier.

“You'll see both on a product side and a future development side that rather than being [purely] a satellite company or one that delivers primarily broadcast television we become tied closer to the core of a tier 1 telco and there's probably only one or two satellite companies around the world that are owned by tier 1 telcos, so we believe there's some advantage in that strategy going forward,” Sheridan (pictured) said.

He said this gave the company advantages in addressing growth markets such as cellular backhaul, but was also a key motivation behind its recent tie-up with Laser Light, a proposed medium-earth orbit satellite service that will operate using optical spectrum – the same as terrestrial fibre networks – rather than radio frequency.

Optus and other providers on a satellite operator roundtable told the forum that the entry of NBN into the satellite space would change the dynamics of the Australian market. Coupled with the proposed arrival of a number of new low-earth orbit satellite networks, such as O3b and Kacific, it would put downward pressure on current capacity pricing.

NBN THREAT: In his keynote address, parliamentary secretary to the communications minister Paul Fletcher said that NBN could use any excess capacity to offer enterprise services that compete with existing providers. However, he also noted that any such services would be provided based on their true costs and would not necessarily undercut the market.

Sheridan welcomed the government's position although noted that NBN's satellite service will put pricing pressure on existing services. But in Optus' case the NBN has already brought increased business.

“NBN has brought a lot of opportunities for us with the interim satellite service and indeed we're flying the two new satellites for NBN so that's something we're looking forward to and we're ready to go,” he said.

Other satellite operators were more cautious. Glen Tindall, Asia Pacific VP for global operator SES, said that supply in the Australian market was currently growing faster than demand.

“[NBN] is a whole new offering that's never been in the market and for many customers all they want is cheap megabits and that's going to work better than adequately for them. However, there are a lot of other applications where an NBN-style satellite just doesn't suit the needs of our customers so I think there will still be demand in certain areas,” he said.

Also monitoring the Australian and New Zealand markets closely is Intelsat. VP Asia Terry Beakley told the forum that new technologies would allow capacity to be more easily moved between markets in future.

“Intelsat as a global provider will look at the Australian market very carefully, with flexible, softwaredefined payloads coming in the future, the ability to switch in capacity is something that you can do and we'll look to play with those technologies,” Beakley said.

LEO SCHEMES: Commenting on the arrival of the proposed low-earth orbit players in future, the three panellists questioned whether all of the new players would survive. There are new schemes proposed by the likes of Google and entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Elon Musk.

Tindall saw parallels with the massive build out of subsea cable networks in the 1990s. “Everybody is seeing the same demand but they're going to build five times as much capacity as necessary for that demand. It could end being a good thing in the long run – that's why fibre optic cables are so cheap, because everybody built them like crazy in the 90s and they all went broke and were bought for cents in the dollar. So maybe that's what will happen,” he suggested.

Beakley also pointed out that there were a number of technical challenges facing the proposed LEO systems. In particular, some of the proposed schemes comprise constellations of 600-plus satellites orbiting the earth, which could make them less adaptable to changes in technology than their geostationary counterparts. He also pointed to co-ordination challenges.

“Fixed satellite operators over the equator have priority over LEO constellations so being able to co-ordinate Ka-Ku band with fixed satellite service providers is a real challenge. And then if you look at the constellations and the bands they're talking about using, a lot of them are talking about using Ka band. Well, once you've got one constellation up there in LEO using Ka band it's going to be very
complex and difficult to coordinate with another player who is operating a LEO in the same band. So there are many complexities, a lot more gateways are required to fly them and there's a lot more cost on the ground,” Beakley noted.
Geoff Long

Satellite players flag massive growth in mobility
Global satellite specialists have flagged key opportunities around what they identified as huge growth
in the mobility satellite services market, with a primary focus on delivering connectivity services to the
aviation and maritime industries.

During a panel session at the Australasia Satellite Forum in Sydney, representatives from major satellite firms including
Intelsat, Omnispace and ViaSat agreed that the mobility market had already seen massive growth, and forecast this to
ramp up dramatically going forward.

ViaSat program manager Erwin Hudson said his firm had recognised some fifteen years ago that mobility would
become a key growth opportunity. Hudson said ViaSat had already been investing heavily in this segment.

“Over the last three to four years we’ve also expanded into Ka-band mobility, starting in North America,” he said, noting that for example the firm had developed its own suite of antennas for a range of commercial airliners in that geography.

L to R: Henrik Jacobsen, Patrick French, Joe Bravman, Erwin Hudson He said demand for airline mobility services was extremely high and added that ViaSat was poised to bring on additional satellite capacity over the North Atlantic ocean to support intercontinental
flights, with the launch of ViaSat 2 slated for 2016.

Omnispace CEO Joe Bravman, meanwhile, envisaged a massive shakeup of the sector around the adoption of video streaming services and other mobility applications, noting associated demand for increased satellite capacity from both the commercial aviation and maritime industries.

IntelSat APAC head of business development Patrick French, for his part, said that particularly in the APAC region the maritime mobility satellite market was very strong, but that aviation opportunities were still in the very early stages. “But don’t forget that two of the biggest potential aero markets in the world are China and India,” he said. “They’re still effectively closed today but that’s bound to
change and those are huge markets.”
Richard van der Draay

Foxtel: pressure on satellite to respond to IP threat
Foxtel has warned that satellite suppliers must answer the growing threat from over-the-top IP content providers, or risk losing ground in the battle for video share. And while satellite players like Eutelsat may be betting big on 4K TV as a key differentiator, Foxtel head of delivery strategy Bernhard Conoplia has yet to be entirely convinced.

“We’ve seen the emergence of a number of streaming over-the-top video on demand players: our own Presto service, Stan, and of course Netflix... but these services weren’t enabled by satellite, they were all enabled by IP,” commented Conoplia, on a panel at the Australasia Satellite Forum in Sydney. “Satellite is an important part of our business, but it’s really a hybrid model [that we’ll use] to supply the best service for our customers.”

“Clearly satellite is very good for delivering mass viewing events, where you can have huge numbers of customers watching the same
thing at the same time. [But it’s] not very good at all for delivering niche viewing, or video on demand... and everything in between is really up for grabs,” he added. “We see IP as having really closed the gap from a quality perspective... on the supply side, there’s a potential substitute for satellite there. Hopefully, satellite can respond to that – and depending on that response, that will help us decide how much of our content gets delivered by satellite and how much gets delivered by IP. Our customers don’t care!”

But fellow panellist and Eutelsat Asia deputy CEO Pierre d’Anthenay, whose firm is now looking to extend its video expertise further into APAC and other regions from its home region of Europe, was confident. “We have 37 satellites, 70% of our revenue comes from video; we have 5,800 channels on our satellites [serving] 40 pay-TV platforms,” he said. “Since I’ve been in the industry, I’ve
heard people saying that sometimes they have oversupply and so on, but each year we’re growing... and video is growing.”
“Fundamentally, we’ve created a market and we continue to deliver... we are helping customers to provide quality, and satellite TV is very good quality.”

On the quality theme, d’Anthenay cast 4K TV as an upcoming ‘game-changer’, noting the impressive speed with which the entire technology chain was gearing up to support the standard. “4K for us is a totally massive experience – it’s more impressive than when we switch between SD... and HD,” he said. Conoplia, though, was a little more guarded. “We’d love if [4K] took off, and enabled us to differentiate against our over-the-top competitors! “Netflix claims to be doing ultra-HD, but [it’s] maybe a cut-down version of that,” he said. We’re going to watch the progress of 4K very keenly. If customers decide that they want it and they need it, and we can afford to provide it at a price that they’ll pay, then we will absolutely do it.”

“[But] I’m not sure the demand is going to be there. I know that when you walk into a shop and stand one metre away from a 4K TV, it looks incredible – but in your lounge room, when you’re 3-4 metres away, does it look any different to an HDTV? I’m not sure it does. We’ll let the market decide whether there’s strong demand for it... we see the same story from our peers around the world.”
Petroc Wilton

Pacific Islands a key growth opp for satellite
Despite a relatively small and scattered population, the nations of the Pacific are demonstrating a rapidly growing hunger for data – and, while there are some submarine cable projects set to touch the region, it looks set to be a key growth opportunity for satellite as well.

Panellists at the Australasia Satellite Forum in Sydney agreed that surging demand for video and other content, compounded by the falling costs of capacity, was creating a strong market in the Pacific.

And there was a broad consensus that submarine and satellite capacity players could complement, rather than threaten, each other: submarine driving step-changes in bandwidth supply to more populous areas and thus changing consumption patterns, but satellite also playing a key role as an interim service, as a more permanent solution for remote geographies like island chains, or as a redundancy option.

“We’re probably the classic example because we just moved into the Pacific in February,” said ABS APAC VP John Hawker. “We see it as a very interesting market; it is small compared to other places we’ve been in, but we do think there’s great room for growth. There is going to be more demand for bandwidth, submarine isn’t going to reach everywhere – and submarine is not always the answer. A number of people in the Pacific are beginning to learn that the cost of having a [repair] ship on standby is a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year.”

“The Pacific has a lot of different markets, different price points – it’s a place where there’s still going to be a lot of growth, and there’s a lot of growth for different platforms.”

“The market has moved on since the introduction of good access infrastructure for mobility,” put in Loyley Ngira, CEO of Solomon Islands telco Our Telekom. “The capex spend today is all about access for 3G or 4G into the future; that demands additional bandwidth and, at the moment, bandwidth is via satellite.”

Ngira highlighted the education, health and tourism sectors as key consumers of bandwidth driving the market, a theme picked up in part by Digicel Pacific Group ICT business solutions head Gary Cobain. “We’ve seen probably 50% growth in data just in the last 3-4 months; we’ve launched 4G, now, in some of our markets,” he said. “We’ve got a substantial number of schools and government
bodies, now, looking to put services across the networks and use those 4G networks, yet we don’t have the capacity into the country – they want to access content, for the most part, that sits outside the country.”

“At this point, even paths into the Solomons, Papua New Guinea and some other markets are probably still [going to have to wait] 2-3 years before submarine cables will deliver the kind of bandwidth that’s needed,” he added. “So satellite has a huge part to play over the next couple of years and beyond that, I think the outer islands that most of these territories have [still present] the opportunity
to deliver smaller VSAT hubs.”

“In my perception, there are still 1.5 million people to connect in the Pacific with decent broadband services,” concluded consultant Maui Sanford, moderating the session.
Petroc Wilton