[Satellite News 09-23-10] Pakistan is an intriguing market for satellite communications, as the importance of the platform was only heightened recently by catastrophic flooding in the country. Paksat, Pakistan’s commercial national satellite operator, has initiated a plan to bring the benefits of satellite technology to the country.
    Paksat CEO Usman Bajwa discussed the company’s future plans with Satellite News, outlining the role Ka-band will play, as well as the upcoming launch of the Paksat-1R satellite and new DTH platforms in the region.
 

Bajwa: Pakistan’s communications infrastructure has grown extensively over the last 10 years with over 98 million GSM users and a tele-density of over 60 percent. However, we do still have areas in the west and northern rural parts of the country that lack in communication infrastructure where satellites are the only viable means of connectivity. Most of the mobile operators initially focused on penetrating the urban and semi-urban areas. Now, there is a competition to expand their geographical reach across Pakistan and penetrate the population living in rural and remote areas, and that is driving the demands for satellite capacity significantly. The government has a very robust Universal Service access program, which is encouraging the spread of connectivity to rural and remote areas. They are providing incentives for the operators that want to go into those areas.
    We also see continued growth in the TV broadcasting sector, which will fuel demands for capacity. We are anticipating at least two DTH projects being launched in Pakistan over the next two years. That will further trigger demand for Ku-band capacity for the domestic market.
 

Bajwa: It has severely impacted the social services infrastructure in the affected areas, including health education and municipal services. Displaced population is forced to take shelter in makeshift tents along roads highways and embankments. Delivery of healthcare and emergency services to these people has been a big challenge. That’s where satellite technology has come to play a very important role. Telemedicine services using our current satellite Paksat-1 are filling the healthcare delivery gap in these areas. A number of remote telemedicine clinics have been established in these areas, which have been linked to large hospitals in Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi, enabling delivery of specialist healthcare services to displaced persons at their doorsteps. A number of mobile telemedicine clinics equipped with Paksat Ku-band satellite connectivity have also been deployed which are visiting displaced people stranded in remote inaccessible areas to provide them much needed medical support.

Bajwa: We are now in the process of developing and launching Paksat-1R. That satellite will replace the existing satellite Paksat-1, which is stationed at 38 degrees East. We have been operating that satellite for almost seven years. We are targeting to launch Paksat-1R in August 2011. It is being developed with CGWIC in China and Thales Alenia Space.

Bajwa: Paksat-1R will have a C- and Ku-band payload. We will have 18 Ku-band and 16 C-band transponder equivalent capacity. The satellite has been specifically designed to offer broadcasting [and] DTH as well as backhaul services, Internet trunking and data services within the region. We will be covering South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe in C-band, and with Ku-band, we will be covering South Asia and the Middle East.

Bajwa: We have a national satellite development program under which Pakistan plans to launch a number of satellites. Paksat-1R is going to be the first in a series of such satellites that we are planning to launch. I would not want to put a specific figure on the number of satellites we might launch, but it could be three or more.
 

Bajwa: We are keeping a very close eye on the development of Ka-band, specifically in our region, but you have to remember in South Asia and the Indian subcontinent, we have significant amounts of rain and heavy monsoons, so we do have that particular aspect when looking at the performance of the system. But there is a market there, so we might look to have a Ka-band payload on one of these future satellites. It could definitely be on subsequent payloads.
 

Bajwa: We have seen an uptake in the activities of the license holders in Pakistan. We expect to see one of the DTH projects launch in the second or third quarter of 2011. We do see a lot interesting activity for us in this area going forward. There are multiple parties interested in doing DTH projects. Our biggest challenges over the next 12 months in terms of Ku-band is to see whether we can get a DTH platform up and running in Pakistan, which could then have a significant impact on the market for satellite capacity.